The Pantagraph from Bloomington, Illinois • Page 1

Sports halted Major League. Baseball, pro golf stopped as nation mourns tragedy See Sports 40 pages, 4 sections WEDNESDAY, September 12, 2001 5o7Ll I Bloomington-Normal, Illinois directed level World Trade Terrorist Death toll may take weeks to determine NEW YORK In the most devastating terrorist onslaught ever waged against the United States, knife-wielding hijackers crashed two airliners into the World Trade Center on Tuesday, toppling its twin 110-story towers. The deadly calamity was witnessed on televisions across the world as another plane slammed into the Pentagon, and a fourth crashed outside Pittsburgh. "Today, our nation saw evil," President Bush said in an address to the nation night. He said thousands of lives were "suddenly ended by evil, despicable acts of terror." Said Adm.

Robert J. Natter, commander of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet: "We have been attacked like we haven't since Pearl Harbor." Establishing the death toll could take weeks. The four airliners alone had 266 people aboard and there were no known survivors. Officials put the number of dead and wounded at the Pentagon at about 100 or more, with some news re- ports suggesting it could rise to 800.

In addition, a union official said he feared 300 firefighters who first reached the scene had died in rescue efforts at the trade center where 50,000 people worked and dozens of po-, lice officers were missing. "The number of casualties will be more than most of us can bear," a visibly distraught May- or Rudolph Giuliani said. Police sources said some people trapped in the twin towers, managed to call authorities or' family members and that some trapped police officers made radio contact. In one of the calls, which took place in the afternoon, a businessman phoned his family to say he was trapped with policemen, whom he named, the source said. Because of fires and unstable debris, no rescue attempts were going on Tuesday night at the site of the towers, however.

See ATTACK, Page A4 A .1 i I 1y r. I m. 1 AU' 1 jr-- try. 1 I 'A I I i i i i i AP crashes WASHINGTON, D.C. (AP) Inside the Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had just raced to his office after hearing of the World; Trade Center attack, On a house porch a little more than a mile away, Ralph Banton, 79, was enjoying a crystal-clear morning.

Then Banton heard a jet fly-' ing directly overhead, very low. "It sounded like it was jetting instead of slowing down," he said. Seconds later, American Flight 77, hijacked while carrying 64 people from Washington to Los Angeles, tore into the side of the Pentagon in a shocking terrorist attack aimed at the building that represents America's military power worldwide. The Pentagon burst into Bush: Nation will avenge lost citizens WASHINGTON, D.C. (AP) A grim-faced President Bush asked the nation to find comfort in Scripture as he mourned the deaths of thousands of Americans in Tuesday's atrocities and vowed to avenge their killings.

"Today, our nation saw evil," he said. In his first prime-time Oval Office address, Bush said the United States would find and punish "those behind these evil acts" and any country that harbors them. Bush spoke from the Oval Office just hours after bouncing between Florida and air bases in Louisiana and Nebraska for security reasons. Fighter jets and decoy helicopters accompanied his evening flight to Washington and the White House, where his Marine One helicopter briefly stood vigil on the South Lawn in the event of another. evacuation.

The helicopter took off about 9 p.m. CDT. With smoke still pouring out of rubble in Washington and New York, Bush declared: "These acts shattered steel, but they cannot dent the steel of American resolve." He spoke for less than five minutes from the desk that Bill Clinton and John F. Kennedy used before him. Beside the door, a lelePrompTer operator fed Bush the words that he and his speechwriters hastened to pen just an hour earlier.

He stumbled a couple of times even as he strove to maintain a commanding air. Aides pushed an American flag and one with the presidential seal behind him for the somber occasion. Immediately afterward, Bush joined a late-night meeting of his National Security Council and planned to remain overnight at the White House. Bush said the government offices deserted after the bombings Tuesday would open today. He asked the nation to pray for the families of the victims and quoted the Book of Psalms: "And I pray they will be comforted by a power greater than any of us spoken through the ages in Psalm 23.

'Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil for you are with The United States received no warning of the attacks on the Pentagon and New York's World Trade Center towers, White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said. U.S. officials privately said they suspected terrorism Osama bin Laden, protected by Afghan government, was behind the tragedies. The Afghan government has rejected the accusations. "We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them," Bush said.

"Today, our fellow citizens, our way of life, our very freedom, came under attack in a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist acts." towers Attack on America Although no one has claimed responsibility for the attacks', their coordination and scale bring to mind the man suspected of orchestrating some of the world's deadliest terrorist acts: Osama bin Laden. Page A2 Grounded The Federal Aviation Administration banned flights from all U.S. airports until at least noon today. The Central Illinois Regional Airport took several security measures, including moving anything that could potentially hold a bomb planters and newspaper sales boxes, for example. Page A3 Emotions high Some Central Illinois residents were angry.

Some couldn't find the words. Many agreed that Sept. 11,2001, would share a place in history with Dec. 7, 1 941 when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and Nov. 22, 1963, when President John F.

Kennedy was assassinated. Page A3 Gas prices jump Gas prices in Central Illinois and throughout the country jumped dramatically. Prices in the Twin Cities hit $2 a gallon, while prices in Galesburg hit $4 a gallon. Page A3 The aftermath As night fell, New York City braced itself for the aftermath of the World Trade Center at- tacks. Crews began heading into ground zero to search for survivors and recover bodies.

Page A8 Financial hit The nation's securities mar- i kets shut down and New York's financial district was left in chaos by Tuesday's terrorist attacks. Paged For Tuesday's Lottery results, see Daily Digest Page A9 i ii in i hi ii iir in in ilia iff fri i in ii i 4 -j Debris fell from the south tower of the World Trade Center as it collapsed Tuesday in New York. The twin towers were the site of a terrorist-directed attack during which two hijacked jetliners were crashed into the 1 1 0-story office buildings, causing their collapse. Pentagon aiso anacke i. ji V.

'-4 flames, sending a huge cloud of smoke up into the blue sky, visible for miles. And a part of the western side of the five-sided building in suburban Arlington, collapsed. By Tuesday night, officials were still fighting the fire and were not sure how many people might be dead or injured inside. The area hit by the aircraft was under renovation, and thus some offices may not have been occupied, officials said. Overall, 24,000 people work in the Pentagon: "If we're lucky it would have been more lightly populated than normal," said Rear Adm.

Craig Quigley, a Pentagon spokesman. See PENTAGON, Page A4 AP The south side of the Pentagon building in Washington, D.C., was in flames Tuesday after a terrorist-directed plane crash. Some witnesses to horror have local ties nior interning for the New York City Opera. Tuesday was a school day not a work day so her subway ride took her north, uptown, away from the plane attacks downtown. Upon arriving at the opera, she was sent home.

The buses were packed. The taxis were moving north as people left the southern, downtown end of Manhattan. Her home is a dormitory in the Chelsea area near Madison Square Garden. She walked. "I felt like I was swimming downstream trying to get downtown," said Barsema.

A dormitory neighbor and fellow DePauw student, Sarah Haberer of Bloom-ington, arrived to her internship with the Public Broadcasting Service to find co-workers fixated on televisions. She went to the roof, perhaps 50 blocks from the WTC, ith a handful of people. One tower already had collapsed. She watched the second go. "It was so surreal.

It fell straight down like an elevator shaft." See LOCAL, back page sualty list. Had it occurred Friday, Jennifer Barsema of Fairbury would have reported to her part-time job at Victoria's Secret in the World Trade Center's first floor at 7 a.m., less than two hours before the first hijacked plane crashed into the structure. "It's very surreal to believe I'm 30, 40 blocks away from it," she said in an interview from her Manhattan dormitory. "Right now, my biggest concern is this isn't the end of it." 'Barsema is a DePauw University se By STEVE ARNEY Pantagraph staff They are young women who went East to study. Tuesday, they were eyewitnesses to warfare a terrorist war inherited by their generation and escalated with the most dramatic terrorist strike in modern history.

Four college students from Central Illinois interviewed by telephone saw pieces of the attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C. One easily could have been on the ca 5.