Reporting Live from Ground Zero

Somewhere in South Carolina, around 2 a.m. on Sept. 12, 2001, Tim Malloy, a television reporter, stopped for gas. The clerk kept repeating the same words.

“She said 911. She just kept saying 911 in a heavy Southern accent. It was only after I got in my car that I put it together – 911 for emergency, and 9/11,” he said.

It was little more than 14 hours since Malloy had left his West Palm Beach home. His journey had begun the morning before, in his kitchen while he ate breakfast.

Usually Malloy had CNN on. This particular morning, his best friend from college called and asked him if he was watching television. Malloy turned it on and saw what millions of Americans saw – thick plumes of black smoke billowing from the World Trade Center’s North Tower. And then another plane rammed the South Tower.

Soon after, Malloy reported to work at WPBF-TV, the ABC affiliate in West Palm Beach, FL. He told his bosses he was going to get in his car and go to New York. Taking only a toothbrush and wearing the clothes on his back, he began driving.

“The first thing I noticed driving up I-95 was there were no airplanes. And there weren’t many cars,” Malloy said. “Even when I got near Washington.”

Malloy had covered the first World Trade Center attack in 1993. Clearly this was different.

On his way to New York City, Malloy stopped in Washington and reported live near the Pentagon. An experience best described as surreal.

Malloy, a Fairfield resident and assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll, covered the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks from Washington, D.C. and Ground Zero. He spent two weeks doing live reports for WPBF-TV and WRAL of Raleigh, N.C.

A former reporter for WPIX-TV of New York, Malloy provided hourly reports from Ground Zero for several radio stations, including the one in West Palm Beach, FL.

As he approached New York City, Malloy drove past the Meadowlands in New Jersey. The last thing he expected was a traffic jam. After all, the roads had been fairly empty for most of the trip.

“I got stuck behind refrigeration trucks. That day, they were taking about 10,000 bodies. There were 40 or 50 refrigeration trucks. It’s one of the most vivid images,” Malloy said.

After covering 9/11, Malloy started covering terror-related stories, including completing six tours as an embedded journalist with troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. He is returning to Afghanistan this Thanksgiving to do a piece on a medical evacuation unit.

Once he got to New York, Malloy parked somewhere in the 50s. He took a room at the Algonquin Hotel, where the bar has served as a roundtable of sorts for writers and reporters since the days of Dorothy Parker.

After checking into the hotel, Malloy headed downtown. Though his New York City press credentials were three years expired, he got past police checkpoints. In fact, a police officer recognized him and let him into what quickly became a restricted zone.

At that time, Malloy wasn't worrying about the air he breathed. But the smell seared into his olfactory memory.

“There was something in that smoke. It came on my clothes, I carried it back to the Algonquin,” Malloy said. “It wasn’t just paper. I can smell that smell now. It’s a little bit of fuel, wire, and probably – I hate to say this – people. There’s nothing like it.”

He can’t recall whether he threw away those clothes. He only remembers buying new ones. 

Three days after the attacks, he and his cameraman went to P.J. Clarke’s. Sitting next to him was a man and woman who looked like they worked on Wall Street.

“They took out a picture of a guy and put it next to an empty chair,” Malloy said. “I never asked them about it. But they were having lunch with their friend.”