Latest / The Mark Simone Show / Hour 1: Remembering 9-11 today.

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Hour 1: Remembering 9-11 today. · The Mark Simone Show

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Mark Simone on 710WOR. Well, I hate this day every year.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Looking back, reliving that horrible, awful nightmare that day. But
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: it's the 25th anniversary of the ceremony taking place at
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: the World Trade Center right now. It'll take place also
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: at the Pentagon, Shanksville, Pennsylvania. It's the 25th anniversary. Pearl Harbor,
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: they still do it every year. It's 85 years later.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: On December 7th this year, they'll have a full ceremony.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: It's a big thing in Hawaii, all over television. Officials
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: even from Japan come to be at it with apologies.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: But it's 85 years later at Pearl Harbor. They still
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: do it every year. This will be the first year,
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: by the way, that there's not a single survivor left. Well,
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: the World Trade Center... 25 years later, we look back
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: on it throughout the morning. We'll have a lot of
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  Speaker 1: people that covered it that were there. I'll never forget
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: that day, that morning. A lot of people on the radio,
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  Speaker 1: you know, television, of course, covering it, but a lot
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: of people on the radio that stayed on for hours
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: and hours and hours covering it. We'll talk to some
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: of them. I was at the other place at the time.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: Curtis was over there doing the morning show. We had
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: a great newsman, George Weber. And as soon as it happened,
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: George Weber, great newsman, grabbed his recorder. We didn't have
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: iPhones then. It was 25 years ago. It was kind
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: of a big, he had cell phones, just basic cell phones.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: But he grabbed a recorder and a microphone and he
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: went down there to cover it. And then we never
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: heard from him again. He never called in. So it
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: turned out the cell towers were all down. And he
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: couldn't get a signal, but we didn't know what happened
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: to him. It was hours and hours before we found
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: out he was okay. You know, that was another thing
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: that happened with the trade center going down. Everything got
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: knocked out underground there. All the cell service, all the
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  Speaker 1: cable service, everything. That all had to be repaired overnight.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: It was an amazing 24 hours. Just the gloomiest time
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: in New York. Everybody frightened. We didn't know what was
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: coming next. The first tower was hit everybody assumed it
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: was an airplane accident a pilot went out of control
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: the second plane hit we knew it wasn't an accident
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  Speaker 1: that it was deliberate there was a moment where the
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: first tower fell and it was gone and then I
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: remember I remember I was watching NBC at the time
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  Speaker 1: I forget who the anchor was maybe it was Brian
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  Speaker 1: Williams and they showed it and they said from now
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  Speaker 1: on there will only be one tower not knowing that
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: a half hour later, the other tower would fall. Warner Wolf,
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: we'll talk to him later in the show. He was
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: covering it live. He was on with Imus. Warner lived
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: right now, right near the World Trade Center. He could
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: watch it from his window. He was the one talking
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: about the tower going down.
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  Speaker 2: Warner?
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  Speaker 3: It's gone.
• 3:17
  Speaker 4: What?
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: It's gone. What's gone?
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  Speaker 3: The tower. It's gone. It's gone. It collapsed. It's gone.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: It's not there. The whole tower?
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  Speaker 3: The whole tower.
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  Speaker 1: It's gone.
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  Speaker 4: There's only one tower.
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: Oh, God.
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  Speaker 4: This is horrible.
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  Speaker 1: It's gone.
• 3:35
  Speaker 4: It's not there. It's like it disappeared. It just collapsed.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: Now, there was an architect that in 1965, that's when
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: it started, the project. In 1965, he designed the World
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: Trade Center towers. And he made them strong enough to
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  Speaker 1: withstand a plane crash. And the reason he did that
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  Speaker 1: is a plane had once hit the Empire State Building
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  Speaker 1: in the 40s. So he made sure these towers could
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: withstand a plane crash. But it was 1965. There were
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: no 747s then. The biggest plane was a 727. So
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  Speaker 1: he calculated how much fuel was on that plane and
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  Speaker 1: how much it could burn or explode, and he based
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  Speaker 1: it on that. He didn't know that in the next
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  Speaker 1: couple of decades there would be much bigger planes with
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  Speaker 1: much more fuel And it was enough to burn and
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  Speaker 1: melt down the whole tower. Now, the good thing is,
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  Speaker 1: when he designed the World Trade Center towers, there's different
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  Speaker 1: ways of architecture. You could build it so the building
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  Speaker 1: would topple over, or you could build it in a
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  Speaker 1: certain way that would make it, instead of toppling, what
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  Speaker 1: they call pancake. It would come straight down. And luckily,
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  Speaker 1: he chose that method of architecture because had it toppled,
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  Speaker 1: It would have gone for many, many, many blocks and
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  Speaker 1: taken out lots of other buildings. But instead, it pancaked down.
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  Speaker 1: And I had a friend who was a demolition expert.
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  Speaker 1: They brought him in right afterwards to figure out the cleanup.
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  Speaker 1: And he said when he got there, walking through, they
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  Speaker 1: call it rubble. It was basically just dirt and dust.
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  Speaker 1: And he said, where's the glass? Where's the pieces of metal?
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  Speaker 1: He said, I've never seen one of these where there
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  Speaker 1: isn't pieces of metal, pieces of glass. He said it
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  Speaker 1: was 100 stories of offices. There should be typewriters here.
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  Speaker 1: There should be metal all over the place. And there wasn't.
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  Speaker 1: That's how strong that fire was. It just melted everything down.
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  Speaker 1: Back then, there were big, huge, heavy metal typewriters. Everything
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  Speaker 1: was just melted into dust, into powder. That's why identifying
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: bodies and all of that was impossible. It had to
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: be done through, you'd have to find a speck of
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  Speaker 1: dust that had some DNA in it. There were almost
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: 3,000 people killed. They've identified, I think, about 1,900 of them.
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  Speaker 1: But they got like another 900 to go that haven't
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: been identified yet. There's a part of the city medical lab.
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  Speaker 1: That's all they do in there, this handful of guys.
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  Speaker 1: They go through every particle, every piece of dust, looking
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  Speaker 1: for DNA, trying to identify who perished there. And they
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  Speaker 1: still got about 800, 900 to go. And they swear
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  Speaker 1: they'll never give up. Every so often, they find a
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  Speaker 1: piece of DNA and they're able to identify one more person.
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  Speaker 1: It's going to be a slow process. It's going to
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  Speaker 1: take a lot of years to get this done. Now,
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  Speaker 1: the time after that, after 9-11, I was doing shows
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: every day on 9-11, interviewing people. And I remember interviewing
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: everybody involved. There was Vice President Cheney. I remember interviewing him.
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  Speaker 1: He was in the White House. President Bush, you'll remember,
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  Speaker 1: was in Florida doing a little speech to some kids
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  Speaker 1: in a classroom. Cheney was in the White House. The
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  Speaker 1: plane hit. They came in and they told him he
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: should be moved to a bunker, a secure bunker. He said, no, no,
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  Speaker 1: I'm going to stay up here. He didn't want to
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  Speaker 1: go underground yet. And every time something happened, the Secret
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: Service would come back in and say, I think we
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: should move you to the bunker. And he said, no, no, no,
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  Speaker 1: I'm going to stay here. I'm going to stay here.
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  Speaker 1: And this happened a bunch of times. Then he told
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  Speaker 1: me One time, about 15 of them came in and
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  Speaker 1: just grabbed him. They didn't say a word. They just
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: grabbed him and took him. And he said his feet
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  Speaker 1: were dangling. They weren't even touching the ground. They rushed
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  Speaker 1: him to the bunker. That's when the second plane hit.
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  Speaker 1: I asked him what the scariest thing was that day. Now,
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: you might not remember this, but there were a lot
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  Speaker 1: of planes up in the air. Two planes hit the
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  Speaker 1: World Trade Center. A plane hit the Pentagon. There was
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  Speaker 1: another plane that was brought down in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. So
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  Speaker 1: that's four planes. They didn't know. How many other planes
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  Speaker 1: were going to be like that? How many other planes
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  Speaker 1: were targeting buildings? So they ordered every plane out of
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  Speaker 1: the sky. They ordered every pilot to land immediately, every
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: pilot to land at the closest airport. And that started
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  Speaker 1: happening over about a half hour. And they were worried
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  Speaker 1: there was another plane up there that was going to attack.
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  Speaker 1: So Cheney said the scariest moment, he got on the
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  Speaker 1: phone with the FAA director. His name was Peñas. And
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  Speaker 1: he said, are they all out of the sky? He goes,
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  Speaker 1: we got some that are pilots aren't responding. We got
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  Speaker 1: a few that aren't responding. And Cheney said the scariest
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  Speaker 1: moment was he said, well, how many, how many are
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  Speaker 1: not responding? And Pena said, 1200, 1200 up there that
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  Speaker 1: they couldn't get to land. Eventually I got them all down.
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  Speaker 1: And that was the final attack. I remember also interviewing,
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  Speaker 1: here's the other problem we had. We have, uh, all
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  Speaker 1: kinds of, uh, air force and, uh, fighter pilots and
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  Speaker 1: fighter jets and they're patrolling all over the world. We
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  Speaker 1: didn't have any patrolling in the homeland. We didn't have
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  Speaker 1: any patrolling here. We never figured on an attack here.
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  Speaker 1: So they had to quickly scramble some pilots and some jets.
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  Speaker 1: They got a couple up in the air, fighter jets
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  Speaker 1: with pilots equipped with bombs and all of that. But
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  Speaker 1: the one they got up in Washington, wasn't armed. It
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  Speaker 1: didn't have any missiles. It didn't have anything on it.
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  Speaker 1: It was just pilots up in the air. So that
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  Speaker 1: Shanksville plane was coming. They could see the path. They
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  Speaker 1: looked like it was coming for the White House. So
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  Speaker 1: the pilot was told to stop the plane that was coming.
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  Speaker 1: And he said, if you have to, you got to
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  Speaker 1: have to just hit it with your plane and just
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  Speaker 1: take it out that way. This pilot would have killed
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  Speaker 1: himself in the process. Eventually, they got another plane up
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  Speaker 1: there that could fire on that plane. It was an
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  Speaker 1: American Airlines plane that looked like it was headed to
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  Speaker 1: the White House, and they ordered that pilot to shoot
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  Speaker 1: it down when it got to a certain point. It
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  Speaker 1: was an American Airlines plane. Turned out this National Guard
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  Speaker 1: pilot up there was also in real life an American
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  Speaker 1: Airlines pilot. He would have to shoot down one of
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  Speaker 1: his coworkers. And he asked them, he said, could I
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  Speaker 1: just hit the wing? Could I disable it? And he said, no,
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  Speaker 1: you're going to have to shoot it down. It was
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: a frightening thought. Now, luckily the plane was brought down
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: before it got anywhere near the White House. So they
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  Speaker 1: never had to shoot it out of the sky. But
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: it was an incredible day. It just went on this
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  Speaker 1: nightmare all day long. Sean Hannity, the day before, September 10th, 2001,
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  Speaker 1: had just begun a new national radio show, which of
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: course is on here every day, three to six. It's
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: the most listened to radio show in America. He had
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: just begun the show. First day was September 10th, 2001.
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  Speaker 1: So the second day of his big new national show,
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  Speaker 1: It's 9-11. Manhattan was closed. Remember, they closed all the bridges,
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  Speaker 1: all the tunnels. You couldn't get into the city. Sean
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: lived out in Long Island. So he had to find
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: a studio out in Long Island, do the show from there.
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: And Curtis was on all morning and kept going. John
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: Gambling was on. We were all at the other station
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: back then. They told me, go to sleep. I said,
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: go to sleep? Yeah. These guys are going to need
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: reinforcements in seven or eight hours. So I went to
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: sleep for a few hours because, sure enough, it turned
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: out I went on the air at 10 o'clock that night.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: And by then, every radio station in America decided to
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: take us, to take our programming because they weren't really
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: equipped to cover New York City and 9-11. So we
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: became national for the entire night. I went on about 10,
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: stayed on until about 7 in the morning. And it
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  Speaker 1: was quite a night. Rudy Giuliani... somehow got out of
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: the World Trade Center area, found a command center. His
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: actual command center was destroyed. It was near Ground Zero,
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  Speaker 1: but he found another command center to operate out of,
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  Speaker 1: and he was going to speak. I said, well, let's
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: take that speech. It turned out it was amazing. He
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: was like Churchill, reassuring the nation, calming everybody down. It
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: was amazing. So he made one of those briefings every
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  Speaker 1: half hour we took it. every half hour throughout the night.
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  Speaker 1: And that's where Rudy really became America's mayor. Everybody was up.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: Nobody went to sleep that night. They were all listening
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: to it, listening to him. It was, uh, it was, uh,
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  Speaker 1: a frightening night. It was, and then you remember the
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: days after nine 11, actually the weeks and the months
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  Speaker 1: after nine 11, you were afraid to come into Manhattan.
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  Speaker 1: You're afraid to walk by any landmark. It was the
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: empire state building. Everything could have been a target. You're
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: afraid when you're on the bridge or the tunnel. Uh,
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: I was also on New York one at the time
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  Speaker 1: and we started to do a daily show every day.
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  Speaker 1: I think it was at noon. We do an hour
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  Speaker 1: show where, uh, we'd reassure people. We had every expert on, uh,
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: to talk about things. And, uh, we had grief counselors on, but, uh,
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  Speaker 1: I would ask them everything about what to worry. You know,
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: people were worried about being in the tunnel. We were
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: worried about more terrorist attacks, blowing up the tunnel, uh,
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: One thing we learned from the experts, you're a little
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: safer on a bridge. They can't really blow up a bridge.
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  Speaker 1: If you're in a tunnel and you set off a
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: huge explosive, you'll shatter the whole tunnel. If you do
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: it on the bridge, it'll just go up into the air. Maybe,
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: maybe it might take out the concrete on the bridge,
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: but everybody was afraid to go anywhere. It was just frightening.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: And you'll remember, as soon as it was that night,
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: police from all over the country came to New York
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: to help out. And remember, in New York City, in
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: the coming weeks, there'd be military vehicles all over, in
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: every corner, every intersection. There'd be some kind of military,
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: a jeep, a tank, something there. And then there'd be
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: these police cars from all over the place, from Albany,
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: from Georgia, from Pennsylvania. All these cops came in to
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: help out in New York. It was a frightening time.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: It was maybe, maybe nine, ten months before people... felt
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: safe walking around. It just never stopped. So today's the
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: ceremony at, uh, the world trade center ground zero. I
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: think it was Greg Kelly that first gave it the
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: name ground zero. He was, he was on New York one.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: He was just a reporter at the time. And he
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: was the first one to broadcast from there alive. And
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: he was a military guy. So he said ground zero.
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: And then everybody at New York one started saying ground zero.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: And then that became the phrase ground zero. So today, uh,
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  Speaker 1: A very, very solemn ceremony. There's always been six moments
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: of silence. They've added a seventh moment of silence, and
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: that'll be for those lost there, the victims. And a
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: little controversy. Mayor Mamdani will be there. I'm watching all
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: the screens. We don't see him yet. it's a very, uh, big, uh, ceremony,
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: a big problem. Security wise, you got a lot of
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: ex presidents there. In fact, all the living ex presidents
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: are there. Bill Clinton, uh, George W. Bush, Barack Obama,
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden. I guess he's still a living president, right? Barely,
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: but he's a living president. And then you've got a
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: mom Donnie there. A lot of controversy over that. And, uh,
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: Kathy Hochul is supposed to be there. A little controversy there.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: The Port Authority Police Union asked her not to come.
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: There's some people that have some grievances with her about
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: all this stuff. But also September 11th, that day, it
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: was Tuesday. It was a bright, sunny day. It was
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: primary day. It was primary election day. Candidates like Mark
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: Green were running for mayor. It was the primary election. And,
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: of course, it never happened that day. It had to
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: be canceled. Now, the day before was September 10th. It
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: was a Monday. And all of us doing talk radio
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: on September 10th. The biggest story that we were all
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: focused on was a congressman named Gary Condent. Gary Condent
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: was a good-looking young congressman. And it turned out he
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: was having an affair with a young intern. Was her
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: name Chandra Levy? Something like that, I think. He was
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: having an affair with this young, good-looking intern. Well, the young,
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: good-looking intern turned up dead in a field not far
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: from Condit's house. So everybody thought he had killed her. Now,
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: it turned out later this wasn't the case, but this
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: is all everybody was talking about on talk radio. And
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: this guy, no matter how hard he tried to prove
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: his innocence, he couldn't get it to stop. It was
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: front-page news. It was the topic of every talk show
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: night and day. September 11th happened. It wasn't mentioned again
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: for about a year. So it changed everything. But that
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: was the topic the day before. And then the next day,
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: September 11th, we knew what we'd be talking about 24-7
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: for many, many, many months. Hey, we'll take a break.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: We'll talk to some of the people that covered it live.
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: We'll take some calls next if you want to talk
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: about what you went through that day.
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: 800-321-0710.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: Mark Simone here on the 25th anniversary of 9-11. Well,
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: it's the 25th anniversary of September 11th, 2001. We'll talk
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: to some of the people that covered it that morning.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: We'll talk to Scott Shannon a little later this hour.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: He was on the air for many, many, many hours.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: The morning guys were all on live, so they had
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: to cover it as it unfolded. Let's take some calls.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: Let's just see what, because people have a lot to
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: say about what they went through that day. Let's go
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: to Mike in Florida. Mike, how are you doing?
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: Good morning, Mark.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: Yes, Mike.
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: I remember that day being a Manhattanite, getting the vibe
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: from other people like my father and brother in Queens
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: that Manhattanites were a little bit more of a targeted
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: And there was a certain element of paranoia following a
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: few days afterwards. I remember getting on the train at
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: some point, the subway, and I'm sitting in the car,
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: and a bunch of guys came in wearing traditional Middle
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: Eastern garb, and I was like, oh my God, what
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: is this? And then I remember walking down in Chelsea
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: one morning, and over my shoulder comes this loud roar
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: of a jet plane. And it couldn't have been, you know,
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: it felt like it was like right behind me. And
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: that freaked me out. It was an Air Force jet
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: patrolling the area because they were still patrolling things. And
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: it was such an odd feeling of sort of like
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: quiet and paranoia and camaraderie, all sort of all mixed
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: together among the populace. Yeah.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: All right, Mike, good call. Yeah, they banned all air
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: traffic from over New York City, but there were fighter jets.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: patrolling over new york city flying constantly all over the
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: place and occasionally helicopters police helicopters that sort of stuff
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: hey the other good thing is uh it came out
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: of that we uh didn't have the police department was
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: great but it basically just patrolled the streets and that
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: was it uh we didn't have a big intelligence capability
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: around the world but we suddenly uh over the next
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: year or two got one and you can thank ray
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: kelly for that he uh We couldn't depend on the
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: federal government or the FBI or anybody for a warning.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: We had to have our own intelligence. He created a
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: massive infrastructure for that where he placed detectives all over
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: the world in hotspots to be the first to learn
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: of anything, any threat, anywhere. We still have that today
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: thanks to him. So all over the world, we've got detectives.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: We've got people there. We've got people that speak different
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: languages that work with other intelligence people around the world.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: Just strictly for the NYPD, get us the information directly
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: and first Also, and this was controversial, you had to
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: start putting people at, you know, in certain, there were
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: some very controversial mosques and other places. You had to
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: infiltrate them with people that spoke the language just to
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: learn if anything was happening. And that started, the NYPD
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: continues to do that stuff to this day. Let's go
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: to Tom in Connecticut. Tom, how you doing?
• 20:34
  Speaker 4: Hi, yeah, Matt. Good morning. Just a couple of remembrances.
• 20:41
  Speaker 4: I'm a retired air traffic controller. And there was a flight,
• 20:46
  Speaker 4: a scheduled flight, out of Bradley, which is half it,
• 20:52
  Speaker 4: going to Florida. And one of the planes that hit
• 20:57
  Speaker 4: the World Trade Center almost had a mini collision with him.
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: And.
• 21:03
  Speaker 4: The air traffic controllers in New York were scrambling, but
• 21:07
  Speaker 4: they pointed out the plane flying down the Hudson River
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: wasn't controlled.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was a renegade plane. That's a good point. Well, thanks, Tom.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: It was a bright, sunny day that day. That's the
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: reason the attack was able to happen. Had it been
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: a cloudy day or the weather had been bad, they
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: would have waited. These guys obviously weren't trained pilots. So
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: what they did was they used the Hudson River, starting
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: around Albany, and they knew the Hudson River went right
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: to the World Trade Center. So they looked down and
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: just followed the Hudson River all the way in, needing
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: a bright sunny day to do that. Also, it was
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: a tremendous intelligence failure. Federal government. It happened under the
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: Clinton administration when he put in Oh, that awful CIA director.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: What was his name? I think it was Deutsch. This
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: was some woke CIA director who decided we didn't need
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: to use informants. He cut all that off. He said,
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: we have satellite pictures. We can see everything on the ground.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: We don't ever need to use any informants again. So
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: he cut all that off. Had we been using informants,
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: we might have been able to learn something ahead of time. Also,
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: There was this wall that had been put up. The
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: CIA and the FBI were not allowed to talk to
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: each other. So the terrorists like Mohammed Atta in Germany,
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: other places, CIA is looking at this guy knowing he's
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: probably a terrorist. He comes to the U.S. and the
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: FBI is watching this guy and he's taking flying lessons.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: But the instructor later said he took Lessons in how
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: to fly the plane. He didn't want any lessons in
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: how to land the plane, which is a little suspicious.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: But had the CIA been able to talk to the
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: FBI and put two and two together, everything might have
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: been different. They might have figured this out ahead of time.
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: But that was later corrected. You had the 9-11 Commission
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: who discovered all of that and corrected it and put
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: things back the way they should be. Hey, let's take
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: a break for all the latest news. When we come back,
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: we'll talk to the legendary Scott Shannon. He was on
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: that morning. It all unfolded while his show was on.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: He covered it all live. It was quite a day
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: for him. We'll talk to him next, and we'll talk
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: to Warner Wolf, who was quite a part of that story,
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: covering it live, and a whole lot more coming up.
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: It's Mark Simone here, 9 to noon every day, 710WOR.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: On 710WOR, this is The Mark Simone Show. Well, it's
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: the 25th anniversary of 9-11. On the air that morning
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: and every morning back then was Scott Shannon, the radio legend.
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: Of course, he was on WPLJ back then. He's on
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: the line with us now. Scott Shannon, how are you?
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: Good morning, Mark.
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: What a day, huh? 25th anniversary.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: So you were the.
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: You know, this is the first time that I've ever...
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: gone public and talked about our experience on that day.
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: You were the big morning show in New York, WPLJ
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: every morning, six to 10. And, uh, I'm sure like
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: we do, you had TV screens on in the studio watching.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: So how did you first learn of it?
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: Uh, just like what you said, the TV screens, it was,
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: it's kind of funny too, because not funny, but, uh,
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: I've never listened back to one minute of that show
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: we did. We were on the air 15 straight hours.
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: 15 hours. Got there at 6 a.m. in the morning.
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: We left right after 9 o'clock that night.
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: Five, I'll say one, two, three, four people in the studio. Myself,
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: my partner Todd Pettengill, Patty Steele, and our producer, a
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: fellow named Joe part of Vila. They called him the
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: monkey boy. Any of our listeners know who the monkey
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: boy was. And we also had, um, TV weatherman, Bill Evans,
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: but he was not in the studio.
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: It was a.
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: Channel seven that morning. So it was, uh, obviously it
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: was funny too, because, uh, I remember Todd had been
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: out late that night. Um, uh, so, Sunday night, he
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: went to the Jackson's reunion concert at Madison Square Garden.
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: He took his daughter, I believe. And he got about,
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: I guess, four or five hours sleep. When you don't
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: live in the city, it's difficult to go to sleep
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: in the city in a hotel because there's so much
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: noise and horns honking and sirens and all that. So
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: he could not wait to get to 10 o'clock so
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: he could go home. And unbeknownst to him at that time,
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: he didn't get to go home at all, but we
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: worked till nine.
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we were, back in those days, it was WPLJ
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: and WABC. They were the same place. You were at
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: one end of the floor. We were at the other
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: end of the floor. And it was quite a traumatic
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: day there. And you played music, of course. Did you
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: stop playing music at some point? Oh, we didn't.
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: We probably played one song an hour, maybe two at
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: the most, or a bathroom break or something. But it
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: was always something like Ray Charles doing America the Beautiful, or,
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: of course, any of the songs that were fit for
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: airplay at that particular time. We had TVs on, just
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: like you did, and And you looked and you saw
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: the plane, 945, 946. And you look there and you go,
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: what the hell is that? Like you said earlier, it's
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: a beautiful day. It was just a gorgeous day.
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and we didn't know where the story would go.
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: You remember that... As soon as it happened, they set
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: up a lot of doctors on the west side and piers.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: They put hundreds of doctors ready to treat the victims.
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: And it turned out there weren't... Yeah, but there were
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: no victims.
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, nobody came.
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: I mean, there were no victims that came to the hospital.
• 27:51
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: I said nine voices. It was 846 when it happened originally.
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: And later on, that's... it was just so sad to watch.
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: It was almost like watching a movie and you think
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: you're going to wake up and the movie's over, but
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: it wasn't over. You know, the one thing we did
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: different from a lot of the other states, a lot
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: of people weren't prepared for like a horrible event like this.
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: And we did something just a little bit different. We
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: opened the phone lines to anybody who wanted to call in.
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: And there was great news coverage. But like you said before,
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: it was so many different situations going on. Nobody had
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: any clue what the hell was unfolding before our very eyes.
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: A beautiful day like that and a plane runs into
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: the World Trade Center. That's a movie. Go ahead. Well,
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: I remember... People were calling in initially just describing how
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: they felt and the things that they were worried about.
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: I had a friend of mine, a fellow that worked
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: at Columbia Records with Bruce Springsteen and Mariah Carey, who
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: was vice president of promotion, a guy named Charlie Walk.
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: And he lives right near the towers. he could look
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: out at his, he was out on, he called me
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: from his balcony and he was saying, I can't believe
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: what I'm watching. They're breaking the windows out and throwing
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: throwing things out of the windows you know 100 floors
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: up and it looked like you know maybe it was
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: I guess they thought it was computers or anything just
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: a break and then all of a sudden he stopped
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: for a second and we had him on the air
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: and he goes oh my god those aren't things Those
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: are people jumping out of the windows. And that was
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: the first time that we had heard or even thought
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: about people that were in that building that didn't want
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: to burn to death and they chose their own.
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: Way to go.
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: Oh, it was just so emotional. And then as the
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: day went on, we started getting calls from wives and
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: and kids who had parents there and they wanted to know,
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: they just wanted to go on the air and announce that,
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: you know, if, if you know my dad or if
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: you know my husband, you know, like Sherry or they
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: would give the names and they would tell me what
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: floor they were working on. And by that time we
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: pretty much knew what floors were below the, the plane
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: and the, and the, jet fuel and the fire and
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: the smoke and all that. These people were just so
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: desperate to know that their loved one was still alive.
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: It could have been mothers and fathers and kids.
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: Who worked there.
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: I saw our Secretary of Commerce, Howard Ludnick, on TV
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: this morning. He had two floors of employees and he,
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: he wasn't there. He had to take his, uh, daughter
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: to kindergarten. Yeah. And he was on the way back. Anyway,
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: he lost 658 people and other, you know, several other
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: companies were wiped out that day. Uh, and I'll never, uh,
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: one of the things that, uh, I want to tell
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: you when I, when we all walked out and Todd
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: and Patty and, But when we walked out for the
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: first time, because the building was evacuated other than WABC
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: and us. We were the only people in the damn
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: building because they were afraid. So at 9.15, when we
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: walked out, we had a hotel across the street. I
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: walked out there, and I looked up at the sky,
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: and there's no planes there.
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: And there was no traffic. I remember that. Nothing.
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: There were no planes, no taxis. And when I stepped
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: off the curb, I felt something, and I had ashes
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: up to my ankles. So that's how close. And you
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: could smell the jet fuel in the air.
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: But the most terrible thing was talking to people who
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: were so desperate to find out how their loved one was.
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: Wow. Hey, we only got about a minute left. What
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: did you do the next day and the day after?
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: It was a long time before you went back to normal, right? Programming-wise.
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: Well, you know, one of the most powerful things that
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: I can remember was, other than see, we would get
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: calls from people that were coming in from other places
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: and in a van or a car SUV. They just want,
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: they just drove there. And remember they had a, a
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: parking lot across from the, uh, what's it called? The world,
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: not the, uh, you know, the Jacob Javits center. Remember
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: they set up parking places where these people that are
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: coming from all over the country, they just want to help.
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: I want to do whatever they can do. They brought
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: supplies and everything. And the other image that was burnt
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: in my mind, was the first day I drove back
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: to work, uh, going down the West side highway. Remember
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: when they had the, the, they were working on something,
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: you know, where the ships are and all that. And,
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: but they had a big fence up over there. And
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: on that fence was pictures.
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah.
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: All these people who never came home. Wow.
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: Oh my God.
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: And you just, you just break out in tears. It
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: was just, So sad to see. Wow.
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: Well, Scott Shannon, thanks for everything. We'll have you back
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: under normal circumstances next time, but thanks for the great call.
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: Thanks.
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: Take care.
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: Thank you, Mark.
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: Scott Shannon, he runs the True Oldies Channel. You can
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: listen to that. Just go to trueoldieschannel.com. We'll talk to
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: more people throughout the morning, and we've got a lot
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: to get to on the 25th anniversary of of 9-11,
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: right here on 710WOR. From the WOR Life Vac Studios,
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: this is the Mark Simone Show. Well, hey, it's going
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: to be 80 degrees, mostly sunny today, and then tomorrow
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: it'll be about 80 degrees. Looks like no rain today,
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: no rain tomorrow. There might be some rain very, very
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: late tomorrow night, and then early Sunday morning, 80 again
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: on Sunday. So it should be a pretty good weekend.
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: A lot more to talk about when it comes to
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: the 25th anniversary of 9-11. And we'll do that in
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: the next hour. It's Mark Simone here. Nine to noon.
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: Three hours. Nine to noon every day now on 710WOR.