Working the Web

Terrorist Attacks
September 2001

On September 11, when the twin towers fell, conventional phone lines in lower Manhattan were severed, yet the Internet worked. That morning, my husband was at work less than a mile from the World Trade Center and we plotted his evacuation—a four-mile trek into Brooklyn by foot—via e-mail.

Verizon (VZ) deployed COWS in New York and at the Pentagon. It also set up a center in New York where rescue workers could make calls and use the Internet.