I saw this URL posted on another board and the gal who put the address up...said NBC had offered this site for people who were concerned about the bombings: LINK I went over to check it out and a lot of people are looking for friends and loved ones. Also, there are list posted of survivors. Thought I would put it here in case anyone was interested.

-- Anonymous, September 12, 2001

Answers

As Phone Lines Jam Following Terrorist Attacks, Internet Proves Crucial Communications Tool By Anick Jesdanun The Associated Press Published: Sep 12, 2001

NEW YORK (AP) - Gretchen Heefner of San Francisco quickly went online when she heard about the terrorist attacks. She dashed off e-mails to several close friends in New York, "Send word when you can." The Internet proved crucial Tuesday as people trying to contact friends and family met with busy signals using telephone voice circuits.

"I could not reach anyone on their home phone, cell phone or work phone from my home phone or cell phone, and so e-mail was the best way," Heefner said. "Fortunately, people were in their offices and have fast connections and could get their e-mail right away."

Web sites were established by Prodigy Communications Corp. and the University of California at Berkeley to help people find loved ones who survived Tuesday's attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Visitors can enter their names and messages stating they are "OK," or check on people they know near the attack scenes.

"Some of my roommates were having trouble contacting loved ones on the East Coast," said Miriam Walker, a Berkeley graduate student who came up with the idea.

Several sites added messages of sympathy to their home pages.

Auction giant eBay, out of sensitivity to the attacks, banned until Oct. 1 the sale of any items relating to the World Trade Center or the Pentagon.

At first, eBay staff took down several listings offering debris or other items purportedly from the buildings. Later, the company decided to ban even legitimate items related to the sites to eliminate the chance someone would try to profit from the tragedy, eBay spokesman Kevin Pursglove said.

In the hours following the attacks, Internet traffic slowed and the major news Web sites were jammed.

The Internet search engine Google directed news seekers to radio and television. "Many online news services are not available, because of extremely high demand," a statement read on the site's home page.

Television broadcasts did not appear to promote their Web sites as heavily as they normally do during breaking news.

Technicians at MSNBC.com removed graphics from the site to allow users to access the news faster. CNN.com also streamlined its site, temporarily removing video, ads and non-breaking news.

Reaching the Web site for ABC News was difficult in the morning, before ABC took measures including borrowing server capacity from ESPN.com, owned by the same company as ABC.

The WIRE and other Internet services run by The Associated Press experienced more than five times the normal traffic, said company spokeswoman Kelly Tunney.

"All of our news distributions systems have been stable despite the tumultuous amount of traffic," she said.

The Internet's central backbone performed well overall, according to Keynote Systems Inc., an Internet performance measurement company. Groups that monitor hacking reported no unusual activities.

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AP Business Writers Brian Bergstein and Seth Sutel contributed to this report.

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On the Net:

Sites established to help located survivors:

http://safe.millennium.berkeley.edu

http://okay.prodigy.net

AP-ES-09-12-01 0401EDT

-- Anonymous, September 12, 2001

Family Members of Missing From World Trade Center Attack Wait and Worry

By Tom Hays Associated Press Writer Published: Sep 12, 2001

NEW YORK (AP) - At 7 a.m. Tuesday, Monica Gabrielle saw her husband, Richard, leave for work. At 8:15 a.m., she received an e-mail from him, sent from his office computer. That would be his last contact with the outside world. By 9 p.m., Gabrielle found herself at a New York City Department of Health office, where she and others sought to learn the fate of those missing in the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.

The victims' family members had been urged to visit the Manhattan office to fill out information sheets on their missing loved ones. The sheets are designed to help locate the injured or, at worst, to identify the dead.

Gabrielle was dazed but still hopeful her 50-year-old husband of 28 years - an insurance company employee who worked on the upper floors of the South Tower - would fall into the former category.

The experience "is surreal," she said. "It's hard to know exactly what to do."

Gabrielle's neighbor, David Baker, was there to report that his friend Mary Herencia was missing as well. He said he had learned that some of her co-workers managed to flee safely from the 105th floor of the South Tower.

"That gives me hope," he said.

Parag Papki searched for his brother, Ganesh Ladkat, of Somerset, N.J., who works in software development on the 104th floor. Papki had first been to five hospitals.

At the health department, "They asked me what was he wearing, any body marks, stuff like that," he said. "Since afternoon I am searching. I've been walking to all the hospitals."

Across the street at Bellevue Hospital, about three dozen people stood in line outside a front gate, hoping to find the names of their loved ones on a list of patients. Cindy Ortiz paced the sidewalk, passing out photocopies of her missing friend, Joanna Vidal, 25.

Vidal was last seen leaving home early Tuesday on her way to a conference on the 106th floor of the North Tower - and hadn't been heard from since.

Ortiz was in tears.

"I'm not giving up," she said. "She has to be alive."

AP-ES-09-12-01 0356EDT

-- Anonymous, September 12, 2001