With Communications Down on 9/11, Americans Turned to Radio, Which Fixes the Day’s Horrors in Time

As Americans commemorate 9/11’s atrocities, they’re connected by social media platforms, smartphones, and Internet video channels. Yet a lesson of the attacks — one underlying a communications bill before Congress — is that when disaster strikes, radio may be all that holds society together and ensures we never forget who we are.The 360-foot antenna atop the North Tower of the World Trade Center transmitted several TV and radio stations. Terrorists silenced those signals, but citizen operators and smaller stations kept broadcasting where other telecommunications infrastructure faltered — and a single message rescued half a million people.Amidst the smoke and panic at Ground Zero, the voice of a United States Coast Guard officer, Lieutenant Michael Day, crackled from radios across New York Harbor. “All available boats,” he said, “anyone wanting to help with the evacuation of Lower Manhattan, report to Governors Island.”The author of “Saved at the Seawall: Stories from the September 11 Boat Lift,” Jessica DuLong, described the chaos to this columnist in our History Author Show interview. She noted that Lieutenant Day received no order to mount a rescue. He just saw people in need and reached for his radio, unsure if anyone would answer.Yet answer, they did. Mariners headed, Ms. DuLong said, “down to lower Manhattan within a minute. This was a rescue that was not top-down at all. It wasn’t run by the military,” like the British evacuation of Dunkirk. That evacuation ferried 338,000 soldiers home from France; the 9/11 boatlift saved half a million in a fraction of the time and under worse conditions.One Olympic sailor told Ms. DuLong that “there was no oxygen in the air; so, I kept putting my head in the water trying to breathe,” something she knew made “no sense.” Swimming in the choppy waters was impossible. Survivors who clustered at The Battery, Manhattan’s southern tip, were running out of time. Tugboats, ferries, and other vessels provided salvation.Across New York, radio played a wider role in rallying search and rescue. With rumors and false reports rampant, shaken Americans turned to voices they’d come to trust. Aiming to keep this lifeline as newer technology spreads, the bipartisan AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act will get a vote on the House floor next week.“When severe weather or natural disasters strike and power and cellular networks fail,” a National Association of Broadcasters vice president, Nicholas Anderson, wrote for the organization on Tuesday, “AM stations equipped with backup power can continue carrying … emergency warnings and lifesaving information.” Radio fulfilled these same roles on 9/11.For the 25th commemoration, stations across America are airing “Radio Perspective on 9/11.” A historian, Art Vuolo, put together broadcasts recorded as the attacks unfolded. When aired at the 2002 Achievement In Radio Awards, Mr. Vuolo halted it at the midway point, as it had overwhelmed the Manhattan audience.The documentary hits just as hard today. It’s of critical value as the passage of time muddies the truth about the attacks. Video and images, including people leaping from the Twin Towers to their deaths, are almost never aired. This void is filled with conspiracy theories that warp the historical record.A survey of professors released on Tuesday by the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa found that 66 percent don’t believe their students “can correctly identify the causes or perpetrators of” 9/11. The same number said “scholarly, academic work has generated cover for ideologies, groups, or regimes directly hostile to the United States.”It’s natural for human beings to bury bad memories, and with 100 million Americans born after 2001, the attacks are already receding from living memory. Oral history is of critical importance, since forgetting the past raises the likelihood that history will repeat itself.The broadcasts from 9/11 that Mr. Vuolo compiles allows listeners raised on podcasts to hear the attacks as they unfolded. Radio documented the terror of that day 25 years ago, providing ways to call for help, get information, and stay connected. Today, it can bring Americans together, ensuring that “never forget” is more than just a slogan.

With Communications Down on 9/11, Americans Turned to Radio, Which Fixes the Day’s Horrors in Time

With Communications Down on 9/11, Americans Turned to Radio, Which Fixes the Day’s Horrors in Time

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