From an email from Carol, New York City:

I'm grateful to read the posts and notes from all over this morning now that i'm finally back online. the phone calls and the connectedness with loved ones in the past 24 hours has also been incredible. I know everyone is going through this on some level.

Right now, I need to write.

It's Wednesday, and I am at my desk reporting on and covering the aftermath of the terrorist attack and its affect on the advertising industry. It's very strange. I've talked to media folks all over NYC. Agency execs, TV and cable network execs.

On the one hand, the coverage of this tragedy through the filter of the advertising business seems trivial and innappropriate in the face of the many human lives lost in the past 24 hours and the effect of the terrorist attack on survivors. And yet my primary responsibility in my work is to provide information to our readers, to report on the advertising industry and the things that affect it. We decided there are many readers of our newsletter in the media business who are trying to make sense of it all on so many levels, and their business will be affected by this which they will eventually come to focus on. Probably not today or tomorrow or even this month.

I am so numb. Yesterday was surreal. i left the apartment at around 9:15-9:20 a.m. and walked out onto Second Avenue headed south. A huge gray cloud hung low on the horizon. That's weird; something must have exploded downtown. i wasn't sure what, maybe some kind of gas explosion, something. this can't be good I thought. the sky, meanwhile, was the prettiest crispest blue. what a beautiful day.the only visible cloud was the dirty gray cloud i saw as i looked down the avenue.

I had heard sirens, fire engines sailing down Second Avenue pretty consistently since about 9 a.m., but I was busy trying to get out the door to work -- i knew i had a busy work day ahead of me, but i also knew i wanted to get all my work done and leave early enough to get to Yankee Stadium. I had tickets to Tuesday night's game.

I walked west on 51st St. Third avenue, glanced south, saw the grayish, yellowish cloud still. lexington avenue. still there. what's going on? there seemed to be a heightened kind of buzz on the street. people rushing by, talking on cell phones, worried expressions. i hit park avenue and overheard two Waldorf-Astoria doormen. "They've evacuated the Statue of Liberty and they just shut down the U.N." What on earth is going on, I'm thinking, as I begin to suspect some sort of terrorism but what ...? and I keep walking a little faster, nervous, but no idea why. (why didn't I stop and talk to those Waldorf guys? but i didn't)

I hit madison and 49th. The CSFB retail storefront is crowded. Noses pressed to the glass and others spilling into the brokerage facility, starting up at flat-screen monitors that displayed tragic pictures of both towers, smoking, burning. i ran to fifth avenue and stood with about 20-25 people at the corner by Sak's window and looked south on Fifth with a clear view of the awful site of the two towers. the same sight i just saw moments before on the CSFB TV screens. With my own eyes, I saw them burning, smoking, flames shooting out.

i now began to run walk the next block and a half to my office, not stopping at au bon pain for my usual morning coffee, dazed, wanting to get to a phone. past NBC's Rockefeller Ctr. studios. Tourists and commuters glued to the news zipper that snakes around the corner of the TV studio, which delivered the stream of awful news to people on the sidewalk staring shocked. World Trade Center towers. Both hit by airplanes. Terrorism all but a certainty.

i have to get to a phone, i have to call Jamy. line busy. connected a few minutes later. he'd already heard. it was good to hear his voice. what should i do? should I come home? should I stay and work? someone said a bomb blew up the Pentagon. my co-workers crowded around one woman's cube. she sat on the bus in NJ waiting at the Lincoln Tunnel, watching as the second plane struck Tower 1.

I never turned on the computer. called my parents, Jamy, maybe Chrissy. Can't remember. everyone ok so far. turned around and headed for home at, what, 9;45 or so? Crossed Fifth Ave again. crowds on the corner, watching smoke billowing from the still standing towers. a woman with a video camera recording the scene.

Passing pedestrians, many on cell phones, calling loved ones. conversations overhead as i walked back home: Spanish, French, German....

home again. glued to the TV, answering phone calls that managed to eek through. trying in vain to call many family members and friends, mostly those within NYC to make sure everyone I could think of in town was safe. Who of my family works in the city? Chrissy, Bob, Tom, maybe Kenny drove in on a job today. finally accounted for them at least. lines down, no Internet connection.

There would be no Internet connection all night.

Second Avenue. Watching from our fourth floor window. A steady stream of people, groups, old young, businesspeople, schoolkids, marching uptown. a church group set up a makeshift table with plastic cups filled with water for passersby like you would see at a marathon. I wanted to down and help out. They had enough people pouring water already. Jamy found a supply of plastic cups in the cabinet and i brought them down.

Second Avenue was closed to traffic early in the day and became an emergency route for ambulances, utility vehicles, fire trucks from all over -- within city limits as well as NJ and Long Island and points north. Mamaroneck F.D., white Nassau county squad cars. Would my brother Michael, a brave NY firefighter stationed in Queens, be called to the scene? I'd find out later that he was, and worked through the night into the early hours Wednesday morning, brave Michael, at the epicenter of it all. I thought of him all night. I woke up and wondered whether he was still there or had he made his way back home for a few hours' nap. I found out from another brother he was in fact home and okay, but he'll be going back. it will be a long haul and it will i'm sure take its toll on all of us, and likely much more so for people like my brother who will struggle with the rescue effort in the days to come.

I continued to watch the scene below from the apartment, out on Second Avenue, as it continued to unfold. A NYC police car with two officers in the front seat. the back seat was filled to the brim with white face masks in clear greeen wrappers, so full that the hundreds of masks were pressed against the side and back windows of the car.

all day and all night, a steady procession of emergency vehicles headed south while constant foot traffic headed north. And the occasional figher jet roaring above. You can hear them before you see them.

Jamy and I ventured out to give blood in the afternoon. New York Hospital had a makeshift set-up on our corner, informing people that hospitals and blood centers at this point only wanted 0 negative blood donations. We wanted to be out and move around. Be among people. Not stare at the TV. We walked to and into Central Park. We laid on the grass of either the Sheep Meadow or the Great Lawn (i always get confused which is which). Eerily silent, save for the fighter jets way above us, 3 or 4, circling Manhattan island over and over.

The smoke still filled views down every avenue on the walk back home. Fifth avenue, most notably, held the view of smoke with no more towers in the distance.

Sad, somber faces of people in the street. About a hundred people, camped out in an area in front of the CBS ground-floor studio at 59th and 5th next to FAO Schwartz, watching the news unfold on huge tv monitors. Many of them standing, some sitting along a low wall surrounding an island of small trees. Some laying on their jackets, sprawled along the sidewalk and concrete courtyard, eyes transfixed on the screens above. Most retail shops closed. Tiffany's fortress-like silver doors shut for the duration. B'Altman's security gates in place. A shoe store on Lexington Avenue at 56th St., displaying racks of fall leather boots. doors open. Two or three women casually browsing.

Back past the Citicorp Center, which has a blood center. A line of hundreds snaked around the block. People in line, wanting to give blood. People wanting to do something. We talked to some of them. We were informed no more volunteers needed today, except for the rare O negatives. those people would take a number and report back in the morning.

Back home to find my sister Chrissy camped out on our doorstep, her boyfriend Mike came by 10 mins. later. Jamy dashed across to the grocery store to get dinner provisions, and we all went up to the apartment to sit in front of the TV for most of the night, share a wonderful meal cooked by Jamy and field and place many more phone calls around the country and around the world. Magicians calling Jamy from as far as Japan and Morocco. Friends and family across the country calling and being called. Is everyone ok. Are you guys safe. yes how about you and yours. do you know anyone who worked down there?

The sirens from the street combined with those from the TV began to rattle in my brain from early evening on. Even when we'd shut the TV for five minutes here or there, i thought heard them. The sirens, haunting sirens. I asked, Jamy, do you hear sirens? No. Real or imagined, the wail stayed with me all evening. 2:30 a.m., lights out. Jamy asked in a room of quiet, "are you still hearing sirens?" no, i said. yes, maybe. a minute later, the siren sound rang in my head clearly and by that time Jamy said he heard them too and couldn't tell anymore.

i wondered if it was a similar sensation to when you are on a boat all day, and you hit terra firma and still feel the rocking motion of the boat. it was unnerving.

i fell asleep almost instantly.

and i awoke this morning and remembered. it still didn't seem real, even though i felt that way all day tuesday. Tens of thousands of people perished in the tragedy. We would begin to hear of heroics, of personal tragedies, the magnitude of this horrible tragedy unfolding moment by moment. can't we go back to the beautiful blue sky before any of this happened.

i raced through my shower and into work. i wanted to be at my desk, be able to log on. i hadn't been online since Monday night.

I again walked out of the apartment to a crisp, blue sky. but this morning was so different, as it has been i imagine for so many people. what about those wondering of the fate of their missing loved ones? i can barely imagine it.

I stopped at the bagel store and bought a dozen and a half bagels, assorted cream cheese, butter and spreads. The firehouse is across the street from there and west a half block on 51st between 3rd and Lexington. A hook and ladder parked out front, covered with gray ash. 15-20 tired, dust-covered firemen stood around, some helping hose down the truck, scrubbing the ash from its chrome and red surface, some simply standing around, some monitoring the hoses. some talking to cops in the 17th precinct located directly next door to the firehouse.

i walked past a police blockade and asked, can i bring them these bagels? a cop let me pass through. i walked up to the nearest firefighter. "i don't know who to give these to, but maybe some of you might want something to eat. here's some bagels."

his eyes, bloodshot, tired, puffy. soot marking his face and clothes. a slightly distant stare. i'll never forget his eyes. i've never seen such depths of sadness in another person's eyes.

"thank you," he said. this will be put to good use." i was suddenly uncomfortable, felt awkward. "were you down there?" as soon as I said it, it seemed a stupid question. "yes." those sad eyes. i put my hand on his shoulder gently and said, thank you. thank you for your bravery.

i left and continued on to work, feeling angry, sad, shaky, and yet eager to be going into work, to get away from the TV for awhile.

i have been reporting on the ad industry news all morning. i've talked to many people, some happy to talk to me about the business and of course their personal experiences yesterday, and one woman who didn't want to talk at all, who said she didn't feel it was appropriate. i thanked her and told her I respected that. and hoped she respected my role and my job. she did.

i just turned in my story around 3 p.m., and at least pieces of it may appear on Inside.com. i will also send anyone who likes a copy of it in a separate email if you email me back, but i didn't want to spam anyone with my business story. i can guarantee at least one bright bit of news I managed to uncover amid the horror.

i realized at one point this afternoon how grateful i was for the diversion from the news even for a short time. but i've been away from TV long enough. i am going to a colleagues office now to watch the latest coverage.

thanks for indulging my need to put some of this down.

the terrible sadness in that fireman's eyes. the sirens, which have finally largely gone silent, both in the street and in my mind. images indelibly etched.

and now we await the sad weighty news of the magnitude of casualties that will continue to unfold over the next several days.