PEORIA, Ill. – A national news reporter who was born and raised in Peoria is reflecting on covering the September 11th attacks.
Reid Epstein got his start in news as a paperboy for the Journal Star, and has bylines in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Newsday.
Epstein tells WMBD’s “The Phil Luciano Show” that he was a graduate student at Columbia in September of 2001. On that fateful day, he learned of the attacks by watching them on television.
“By that point, the towers had been hit, and I saw what was happening on television, and we were in journalism school, so we grabbed notebooks and started walking,” Epstein said.
Epstein says he lived uptown on 125th St. at the time, so it was a walk of about 150 blocks to get to Ground Zero after the attacks. Subways were non-operational after the planes hit the Twin Towers, so his colleague and he walked as far as they could to see what had happened.
Epstein recalls that it “was pretty scary” at the scene. He remembers walking past hospitals in Manhattan, where doctors and nurses were awaiting people being transported from the Twin Towers, with some never arriving.
In addition, cell signals and networks were down. Thus, Epstein says he had to file stories over a pay phone.
Epstein says most people were not sure what was happening, and you could not see beyond your eyes. He remembers a person with a boombox turning on a local news station for people to learn what had occurred.
In the days after, Epstein says there was a wide range of emotions and feelings.
“People were scared, there was a real sense of patriotism in the country that you didn’t always see before, American flags in storefronts that were owned by immigrants,” Epstein said. “They might have had flags of the country that they came from, all of sudden they have American flags up in the windows too.”
Epstein recalls people in New York City were on edge for a while after the attacks. He says people would flinch at seeing a plane in the sky, with a plane crash the following in November in Queens being one incident in particular. Epstein says there was a real panic that lingered over the city.
Another aspect was frequent playing of bagpipes for funeral processions for fallen police officers, with Epstein saying that the playing of bagpipes brings back memories of the day.
Epstein says one of his biggest memories and takeaways of September 11th is how it changed the country forever. He says it changed the course of U.S. history, foreign policy, and global politics.
Epstein says the September 11th attacks were part of the reason for the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Other aspects of American life that were changed by the attacks include an increased surveillance state, and more security measures at airports. Epstein says younger children and adults don’t know a world before that.
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