9/11 Ripple Effects

Everytime the internet has problems at work, but our internal network is fine, I have a flashback:

On September 11, 2001 for me, the first sign that something was "wrong" was that the internet was really really slow, but everything seemed to be working fine on a technical level.

I was the Technical Support Manager at a local ISP.

We were getting no calls on the help line, which was really strange. Even stranger: The internet was really really slow. Most major sites would not load, but random smaller sites seemed to be working fine. Instead of trying to load Yahoo or CNN, one of the techs had thought to try GoErie.com, our local newspaper, which actually loaded all the way and had posted emergency notices that a plane had hit the WTC. Then shortly thereafter, we started hearing from enough other sources and visiting other accessible pages to see that this was the cause of the network slowness and that something major was going on. By this time, absolutely no one was calling in for tech support, so someone turned on the TV just in time for the second tower to get hit. What a day.

So my leftover nervous habit, 3 1/2 years out, is whenever there seems to be a very unusual network event, and I haven't heard for sure why it's happening, or there seems to be no immediate answer, I casually walk over to the TV and make sure it's on CNN. Not right away. But, invariably, if I have time to think about why the problem might be happening, my mind wanders back to September 11th, and I flip on the TV. Just in case.