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September 11, 2001 attacks

U.S. Government response

Immediate national response

September 11, 2001: President George W. Bush at Emma Booker Elementary school with Army Lieutenant Col. Thomas Herman, senior Presidential Communications Officer (White House Military Office); Capt. Deborah Loewer, US Navy, Dir. of the White House Situation Room, and others. On first arriving at Emma Booker, Bush is taken to this Presidential hold and to a secure telephone to speak with Dr. Condoleezza Rice (National Security Advisor) at her request. He is told of an attack against the World Trade Center.

Emergency Alert System

Communications Links

The FEMA National Radio System (FNARS) "Provides Primary Entry Point service to the Emergency Alert System," acts as an emergency presidential link into the EAS, and is capable of phone patches. The FNARS net control station is located at the Mount Weather Emergency Operations Center.

Emergency Broadcast System

Purpose

"The Emergency Broadcast System was . . . established to provide the President of the United States with an expeditious method of communicating with the American public in the event of war, threat of war, or grave national crisis." It replaced CONELRAD on August 5, 1963. In later years, it was expanded for use during peacetime emergencies at the state and local levels.

National Level EBS

An order to activate the EBS at the national level would have originated with the President and been relayed via the White House Communications Agency duty officer to one of two origination points: either the Aerospace Defense Command or the Federal Preparedness Agency--as the system stood in 1978. Participating telecommunications common carriers, radio and television networks, the Associated Press and United Press International would receive and authenticate (by means of code words) an Emergency Action Notification via an EAN teletypewriter network designed specifically for this purpose. These recipients would relay the EAN to their subscribers and affiliates

The release of the EAN by the ADC or FPA would initiate a process by which the common carriers would link otherwise independent networks, e.g. American Broadcasting Company, CBS, etc., into a single national network that even independent (i.e. not ABC, CBS, etc.) stations could receive programming from. "Broadcast stations would have used the two-tone Attention Signal on their assigned broadcast frequency to alert other broadcast stations to stand by for a message from the President." Note that the transmission of programming on a broadcast station's assigned frequency, and the fact that television networks/stations could participate, distinguished EBS from CONELRAD. EBS radio stations would not transmit on 640 or 1240 AM, and television staions would carry the same audio program as AM radio stations.

Bibliographic Notes

The Defense Civil Preparedness Agency publication The Emergency Broadcast System: The Lifesaving Public Service Program is in the collection of the University of Central Florida Libraries, and may be available at other academic, public, or depository libraries.

Mount Weather Emergency Operations Center

The Mount Weather Emergency Operations Center or simply "Mount Weather" is a " 'civilian' command facility, the center of operations for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)." "It functions as a main relocation site for the highest level civilian and military officials, and what is called, seemingly interchangeably, the 'Continuity of Government' and the 'Continuity of Operations Plan' (COOP)." "For decades . . . [ it has ] served as the main relocation site for the White House, the Supreme Court and much of the executive branch." Located in the Blue Ridge Mountains, access to the operations center is via "Route 601, also called Blue Ridge Mountain Road, in Bluemont, VA." The underground facility within Mount Weather designated "Area B" was completed in 1959. FEMA established training facilities on the mountain's surface ("Area A") in 1979.A net control station for the FEMA National Radio System (FNARS), a "High Frequency (HF) radio system connecting most Federal public safety agencies and US military with most of the states" is located here. FNARS provides Presidential access to the Emergency Alert System.

Descriptions

National Gallery of Art

• Between 1979 and 1981 the National Gallery of Art developed a program to transport valuable paintings in its collection to Mount Weather via helicopter, if adequate attack warning were available.

Mount Weather EOC Names

• "High Point Special Facility."

Physical Size

Area A

• The entire complex was described as being 434 acres.

Area B

• "a 600,000-square-foot complex inside Virginia's Mount Weather (48 miles by air from Washington, near Berryville)

Congress

• "on September 11, 2001, most of the congressional leadership was evacuated to [Mount Weather] . . . by helicopter."