The Royal Gazette newsroom became a hive of activity when the World Trade Center buildings collapsed on September 11. Before the huge edifices fell everyone was glued to the small television set in our interviewing room.

The enormity of the disaster led to the release of a special early afternoon same day edition.

The office was fully staffed with five reporters on the morning shift and two slated to come in for the evening shift. The evening staffers, Nea Talbot and Stephen Breen, were called in at about 10 a.m. to work double shifts.

Locally the first response to the attacks took place at the airport. Reporter Jarion Richardson was at the Bermuda Biological Station doing an interview for the Young Observer section of the paper and he was dispatched to the airport.

He was told to keep in close contact with airport management and ground personnel and to keep the newsroom informed of any findings. By the time the second tower fell at 10.30 a.m., Mr. Richardson was in place at Bermuda International Airport.

He returned to the newsroom when Mr. Breen arrived from his Southampton home and relieved him.

In the newsroom, reporters Tania Theriault, Ben Greening, Matthew Taylor and Ayo Johnson were told to try and get reports from any and all Bermudians who were in the New York area or in the vicinity of the Pentagon in Washington DC.

Business reporters Mairi Mallon and Magnus Henagulph did the same as many of their local business contacts would invariably know people - especially Bermudians - in New York's financial district.

Ms Mallon tried to verify that all local students attending New York's College of Insurance in Wall Street were accounted for and alright, while Mr. Henagulph looked for Bermuda-based companies that may have had offices in the Trade Center buildings.

At 10.45 a.m. Editor Bill Zuill held an editorial meeting with the full news team, the business reporters and lifestyle reporter Kim Dismont Robinson. He announced that a special eight page edition of the paper would be printed for release that afternoon. A noon deadline was set for article submissions.

All reporters worked flat out. Mr. Breen called in his report from the airport to a colleague at base. By noon there was so much copy that the supplement could actually have been a few pages larger.

The first papers hit the news stands at about 2.30 p.m. with the headline ‘Terror Across America' above a full page colour picture of the twin towers burning. In total four pages featured colour pictures and seven carried both foreign and local copy. There were no advertisements.

Royal Gazette production manager Lloyd Martin said the actual printing of the historic paper was quite short. “We had wanted to have it out by 2 p.m. and there were radio reports announcing that time. It only took about 20 minutes to run through the press but it was a bit late. We had it out around 2.30 p.m. and people were in line waiting from two,” he said.

Twenty-two thousand papers were printed and they sold out in just more than an hour.

At about 12.15 p.m. another editorial meeting of the news team took place. Here reporters briefed the Editor and sub editors on material they had in hand, what they expected to get and what they still had outstanding.

Articles discussed in this meeting were for the September 12 edition of the paper.

As many as 18 flights had been diverted to the Island and so it was decided that another reporter was needed at the airport. Miss Talbot was assigned and went to help Mr. Breen interview the expected influx of passengers.

Karen Smith went to work quickly handling the situation at the Island's hotels. Here it was felt, there would be mixed feelings of relief in the case of diverted passengers and anxiety with hotel guests who wanted to get back to the US.

Mr. Taylor concentrated on Island security, finding out what the Regiment, Police and the US Consulate were doing.

As long as flights were expected and the airport was open it was felt that anything could happen and that the paper could not afford to miss it.

Mr. Breen returned to the office and in addition to writing the airport report, also brought together all the happenings of the day and wrote the main cover story.

Miss Smith said she was among the last to leave the office at around 11 p.m. having filed a report on a late press conference.

“There was a late check-in at Southampton Princess and I had to go up and interview the incoming guests and then go to the press conference called by (Tourism Minister) David Allen,” she said.

Sub editor of the news section for the day was assistant editor Henry Adderley. He said reporters filed copy steadily throughout the day and night. “ I remember we set a final deadline of midnight,” he said. “That mainly affected the copy from overseas where the Associated press and Reuters were trying to substantiate rumours that had been circulating throughout the day. New copy was flowing in constantly and we wanted the most up-to-date story in the paper before we put it to bed so we had to wait for those articles to come through.”

Mr. Zuill said it was not particularly late when the layout of the news section was finally complete.

“I believe we put the paper to bed around 12.30 a.m. or so.”