Jonathan Satriale

I arrived at the newsroom to find that it had become a war room similar to the one I remembered from the crash of TWA Flight 800. Everyone who worked for NY1, in any capacity, was there pitching in. We had several crews already downtown when I saw the first tower drop, via our broadcast. My thoughts turned to one of my best friends, Andrew, a former NY1 reporter who now worked just a few feet away from the WOrld Trade Center. I scrambled to reach him via cell phone but had no luck.

My first story that day was the evacuation of Lower Manhattan. The sheer magnitude of trying to evacuate so many people from such a dense spot was intense. In fact, it took me and my reporter a half-hour to travel one block west because of the gridlock. It was obvious if we were going to cover the story, we best not be part of it. So we traded our car in for a motor scooter and traveled down the median strip and on sidewalks with the camera strapped to my back. We interviewed several people heading out of the downtown area, covered in debris and chased by clouds of dust. Somewhat magically, my good friend Andrew came out of the masses and we stopped him. It was a weird mixture of hugs and fact-finding. We interviewed him as wel, and he did his best to give us an accurate and unbiased report, but he was visibly shaken.

Our next stop was as close to Ground Zero as we could stomach. The air was gray and difficult to breathe. The police kept trying to push us back. There was a news truck from another station that we met up with. Later that day, #7 World Trade would crumble onto the spot where that news truck had been. We gathered information and pictures and then decided to pull back, all the while I was thinking about the increasing risk to my life.

We headed uptown to the Red Cross Emergency Response Center to cover the outpouring of support for the victims. There was a line of blood donors wrapped around several blocks. The unique thing was the diversity of the donors. Imagine all those interesting New Yorkers we have - all on the same line - from the business professional to the transit workers to the body-piercing champ. I couldn't help but tear up a bit as I panned the line with my camera. So much support from a seemingly harsh city.

Somehow, as long as I kept my eye to the viewfinder, I felt like I was just doing my job, and it made what I was seeing tolerable. However, every so often my own emotion would seep through and remind me that this was not tolerable. What I was covering was beyond words. As a former firefighter and EMT, I knew wat had to be done and who was performing what role; this time I was playing the role of the media, a role that I was proud to play, on a story that changed our world, our city and my life.

- J.S.