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A reporter asked me this question in email, which I couldn't answer. Does this ring a bell for anyone? If so, I'll paypal five bucks to the first person to find the appropriate thread (I'll ask the reporter to pay me some research fees)

"I'm writing to you today to see if you can help me with a search I'm doing or perhaps offer some suggestions. I'm working on a story about emergency dispatchers, and I remember an incredibly affecting thread about 2 months or so after Sept. 11 that had accounts from New York City dispatchers on their experiences that day. I've put every imaginable search term into the Mefi engine ("emergency operator", "operator," "Sept. 11," "911," "dispatcher", etc.) but the search either times out or comes up with nothing."
posted by mathowie to MetaFilter-related at 7:29 PM (19 comments total)

This thread from January 14 discusses the 90 minute video, parts of which were later shown on CBS. Parts of this thread also talks of the emergency operators.

Other than jonmc's friend, I don't think any emergency worker is also a member of mefi.
posted by tamim at 8:06 PM on March 27, 2002

Matt, we've got one at MSNBC.

http://www.msnbc.com/local/wnbc/a1127716.asp

It's not a Metafilter thread, but may have some of the same info. Hope it helps.
posted by GaelFC at 8:13 PM on March 27, 2002

Here's a story about dispatchers experiencing "survivor guilt".

Probably not where it was originally linked from, but since it's an AP story, maybe the elusive post's link was to another version of it?
posted by beth at 8:35 PM on March 27, 2002

Two more versions of the story: at go.com and at Newsday.

I can't find the damn thing; I give up. My Google Fu is not strong enough.

I scanned through a bunch of stuff in the region of Oct 4th/5th and later (when these stories came out), but didn't find it. Ah, well.
posted by beth at 9:10 PM on March 27, 2002

The two most likely web pages I can find are:

The recordings linked in the thread anildash has already managed to locate, and

'We Have Some Planes,' Hijacker Told Controller [NYT, reg req'd]

but the search is timing out and I can't find if the latter was linked and discussed on MetaFilter [maybe without '?pagewanted=print' at the end of the URL].
posted by southisup at 3:12 AM on March 28, 2002

I did a thorough search. Unless it's on an entirely different thread which somehow manages to avoid every possible synonym for every possible aspect of the story, then it's not on MetaFilter.
posted by MiguelCardoso at 3:54 AM on March 28, 2002

I had a look in vane. During my search I stumbled across the Sept 11 thread for the first time. What an incredible read. In times to come when people ask what it was like on the day of the attack, I'll just point them at that thread. Kind of a shame that MetaFilter wasn't around when Kennedy got shot. On seeing Russians celebrating in Red Square, owillis would have called for a nuclear attack, and Paris, regardless of anything, would have insisted that it was the Iranians ;-)

Joking aside, there is something incredibly profound about MetaFilter's capacity to mark a day in history. I think that it is all of our obligation to ensure that this place stays around. (sits looking out at a stunning spring day pondering the wonder that is MetaFilter)
posted by RobertLoch at 8:06 AM on March 28, 2002

'sorry, I'm a former editor, can't help myself sometimes'

I wouldn't make a habit of correcting my English if I were you - it could be a full time job ;-)
posted by RobertLoch at 12:53 PM on March 28, 2002

Cool, now we can forward our posts to beth first. With her tragic but useful neurosis we'll get back some really polished posts. Matt, please code this into the preview button, thanks.

posted by skallas at 5:00 PM on March 28, 2002

Matt, I know this is odd but my gut feeling is that what the reporter in question is looking for is the link from MetaFilter to a site that described how the *closed captioners* kept going thru the crisis. I've no idea how to find it myself. If you do and that's it, send the five bucks to the folks who write the closed captions.
posted by realjanetkagan at 8:02 PM on March 28, 2002

March 27, 2002 7:29 PM Subscribe

March 27, 2002
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