I’m reading an oral history of 9/11. It’s pretty good.

On 9/11 I worked at AT&T doing phone support. The TVs mounted on the walls of the call center had CNN on 24/7. I was on shift that morning and I watched the report of the first plane hitting the WTC soon after it happened. I was surprised when the network cut away to some trivial story and made a comment on that odd decision. My co-workers asked why I was bothered that CNN had gone on to something else since what had happened was just an accident. I said, “No one crashes a plane into the tallest building around on a clear blue day on accident. That was likely terrorism and we’re under some kind of attack.”

All of them scoffed at me. Twenty or so minutes later the second plane hit; the scorn came to a screeching halt and the usual questions about how I had possibly known what was very fucking obvious ensued.

Then all devolved into chaos as the federal government basically seized all of AT&T’s communication infrastructure due to the national emergency.