Pat Harvey of CBS LA News had only been talking about her memories of Sept. 11, 2001, for a few minutes when she made a surprise confession.
“I’m actually shaking a little bit right now,” said Harvey, her voice dropping a bit. “It was absolutely horrible. It’s hard to put into words.”
Harvey, who anchors the late evening and 11 p.m. newscast, was recently describing her recollections of that historic day after being awakened by a phone call from her husband and learning that two planes flown by terrorists had crashed into the World Trade Center.
She is not alone in feeling emotional as the nation observes the 25th anniversary of the attack. Two other veteran TV anchors working that day — NBC4’s Colleen Williams and former Fox 11 “Good Day L.A.” anchor Steve Edwards — are also haunted by their memories of rushing to their respective newsrooms to cover an unprecedented event.
“Everyone at the station had the same face — a shocked face, almost hollow,” said Williams, who currently anchors KNBC’s 5 p.m. and 11 p.m. newscasts. “We just couldn’t comprehend the enormity of it. There was some comfort in watching it as a group. But not much.”
“There’s really no comparison to whatever events I had covered before — all other moments fail,” said Edwards, who left Fox 11 in 2017 and currently hosts the “So Unanchored” podcast with former “Good Day L.A.” colleagues Dorothy Lucey and Jillian Barberie.
In separate interviews, the three journalists detailed how they handled their duties and serving their viewers while also dealing with their own personal fears, including worries that family members might be in harm’s way.
“It’s a very pleasant job, but at a moment like this, you’re covering one of the most horrific events ever, and humility comes,” said Edwards. “You have to serve the moment.”
Harvey: ‘It was a somber occasion’
Her phone rang at 6 a.m., the crack of dawn.
“My husband was out of town, and he called to say, ‘Oh, my God, you should turn on the television,’ ” said Harvey.
The first tower had already been attacked. “I started my career in September 1979, and a couple of months later the hostages were captured in Iran. When this happened, I thought, ‘Oh my God, it’s reached our shores.’ To see people jumping from those buildings, to see the flames …”
Harvey continued, “I was breathing heavily. I called my husband back and told him I could not believe what I was watching. But I got calmer as I talked to him. He is a businessman — he lives in the now, so he is able to do that. He knows how emotional I can get. And he knew I had a job to do.”
As the conversation went on, her husband told her, “Pat, this is out of our control. But it is going to be OK. It is miles away in New York.”
He also reminded her repeatedly that U.S. airspace had been shut down, erasing the threat of an attack on the West Coast. “He told me I needed to be calm and help our family in this situation,” she recalled. “I also had my sister, who had moved in with us and is special needs, and her son. So I had a lot going on at the time.”
After they hung up, “my next thought was that I had to calm down and get my daughter ready for school. She went to high school in Santa Monica, and we lived in the San Fernando Valley at the time. I called the school to see if they would be having classes, and they were. So that was another good sign.”
As they traveled to Santa Monica, Harvey and her daughter passed by the Federal Building on Wilshire Boulevard. “She asked me, ‘Mom, are they going to blow up the Federal Building?’ I had to reassure her we were safe because the airspace was shut down. I mean, we’re driving to school like it’s an ordinary day. But it’s not an ordinary day. I thought, ‘Are we really safe?’”
Walking into the busy newsroom brought a little bit of comfort. “Out of all the natural disasters that I have covered, I was so glad to be at work where I would be able to get more information and be on top of things. Some of my colleagues were already on the air, and we had an affiliation with CNN so we were using their coverage. We didn’t have a morning newscast then, but we had a 2 p.m. and 3 p.m. show, plus our three-hour evening block.”
The atmosphere was electric, she recalled: “It was all abuzz. Phones and printers were going off. We were busy, but there was also camaraderie. Some people were nervous, some were crying, but we knew we had each other. We could bond and support each other.”
The recollection of her first newscast that day is vivid. “I was somber, because it was a somber occasion. I also wanted to be respectful. I knew that everyone who had lost loved ones had not yet been notified. We didn’t quite have all the answers. My job was to give as much information as I could, or was allowed.”
“A lot of people at the station were visibly upset,” she added. “When I had down time, I would go off and hang my head. But I knew we would have to go back on the air. When the planes went back up in the air and we felt somewhat safer, there was a collective sigh of relief. But it was still very raw, very emotional.”
She doesn’t remember how late she stayed at the station. “I wanted to be there as long as possible, but I also had my family to get back to, and the next day was a school day. But when I got home, I couldn’t turn my brain off. I had so much empathy for people who lived there or had lost loved ones. But I had to force myself to turn off the news. The day took a real emotional toll.”
Williams: ‘This was no accident’
Like Harvey, Williams was asleep when she was awakened by a phone call from her husband, who was out of town.
“My husband was a commercial pilot and also a military pilot,” Williams said. “He was flying to Los Angeles that day, piloting a 767. He called and told me to turn on the TV — ‘You won’t believe what is going on in New York.‘”
Williams was initially confused. “The initial report was that a small plane had hit the tower. Then it was reported that it was a larger commercial plane. They then showed pictures of the second plane hitting the towers. That’s when it became all too real. This was no accident. It was an act of terrorism.”
Williams knew that her husband was safe because his flight had been grounded. “But my brother was a commercial pilot at that time, and we couldn’t figure out where he was. It was hard because we knew he was on the East Coast. We’re a very tight-knit family — I’m the eldest of seven children — and this is one of the baby brothers.”
She was also the mother of an 8-year-old son. “I was trying to get him ready for school, not realizing that his school would be closed that day. I was trying to explain to him what was going on. But there was no explaining. I’m still explaining it to him — he’s a commercial pilot now.”
She rushed to the Burbank-based network and observed her shell-shocked colleagues. She also felt disoriented.
“I’m very much the person off screen that you see on-screen,” Williams said. “People would say I’m always calm. But I remember thinking that day, ‘I don’t know how to do this. There’s a need to disseminate information and I can’t be hysterical about it. Usually I can put it in perspective, but I could not put 9/11 into perspective. This was just so evil.”
Since NBC was handling the coverage, Williams spent much of the day monitoring the news and taking copious notes, ready to go on the air at any moment.
“My phone was also ringing with people who knew my husband was flying that day and wanting to know if he was safe,” Williams said. “At the same time I was also worried about my brother. It was two to three hours before we could connect with his family and find out he was OK.”
She breathed a sigh of relief, and then “at some point it just became a blur. It was time to go to work and focus on getting the story out. We were journalists, but on that day we were also viewers.”
Edwards: ‘It was controlled chaos’
Edwards was driving on Sepulveda Boulevard on his way to work at the Fox 11 studio in West Los Angeles when he got a phone call from Barberie, then the “Good Day L.A.” weather reporter, informing him she would be late for their morning show.
Moments later he got another call from his wife telling him that a plane had just crashed into the World Trade Center, and that not much else was known.
“I immediately called Jillian back and told her not to worry about being late and doing the weather,” he said.
When he got to the station, anchor Tony McEwing was minutes from ending the early morning newscast, “so I knew we were in good hands. He handed it off, and 20 minutes later I was on the air. It was a really long 20 minutes because I really wanted to know what was happening. I was checking every resource I could — the wires, the internet.”
The newsroom “was absolutely in go mode. Producers were ready. It was a controlled chaos. Dorothy and Jillian were also in disbelief, but totally engaged. They were helping me, and I was helping them. We were really functioning as a team.”
He recalls thinking about the unknowns of that day — how widespread were the attacks? Would there be more? It dominated his thoughts as he prepared to go on air.
“I also knew that we didn’t want to speculate, because that would not serve any purpose,” he said.
One jarring moment in particular stood out: “We ran a video of what I thought was the first tower going down. I said that on the air, that this had happened a little while ago in New York. Then Dorothy and Jillian said to me, ‘Um, Steve, that was not a tape. That was live. It was the second tower going down.’ ”
Edwards, who is a New York native, paused: “I thought of all the hundreds, thousands of people in that building. You’re also aware that people were jumping out of windows. That’s when you have to stay focused and not overdo your job. As bad as it was, could it get worse?”
He said the anniversary makes him reflective. “The country was pretty polarized back then, and this event brought everyone together. But I’m old enough to know that nothing ever brings us completely together. It felt good at the time, but it didn’t last long.”
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