Today 10 years ago .. remembering 9/11 – in the IOL newsroom.

I was working for Independent Online (IOL) at the time and around 3:30 decided that it was time to hit the road and go home.  As I was walking through the newsroom my eye caught one of the many TV’s in the newsroom that happened to be on CNN.  I could not believe what I was seeing.  For a minte or 2 we all just starred at one another in disbelief and though by ourselves, can this  be real.

Me going home came to an abrubt halt and the newsroom became a hive of activity.  I was in charge of technology at IOL and we started thinking of what this will mean to our servers and the kind of traffic we could expect.

IOL was the first news site that had the story up and we immediately saw a spike in traffic.  We kept a watchfull eye on the servers and at the same time needed to ensure that the journalists had an optimum system to keep the stories flowing and keeping the site updated.  That day I came to respect the open source stack that we ran to serve IOL.  It did not strain at all under the load and just kept on ticking.

At about 11pm that evening things started to quiet down a bit and we could go home for some sleep while the night shift kept things going.  Early the next morning we were all back in the office to keep the news flowing.

Although we were looking on from afar, it felt like we were right in New York and today my toughts go out to all in America and the rest of the world that lost loved ones and friends.  I know it is a day I will never forget.

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