Well, in hindsight, you can make a case for 9/11 being a "regional disaster." At the moment, however, that was far from clear.

I was up early that day, watching CNN. It was a slow newsday - the lead story was about Michael Jordan, until they broke in with a developing story about a plane crash in NYC. With a ringside seat as events unfolded, I kept thinking, "what might happen out here on the west coast? How far will all this reach?"

You may recall that very quickly all planes within the US were grounded immediately. That affected even charter flights to the Channel Islands so we had park personnel staying longer than anticipated. To me, that would qualify as an event that was national in scope.

My wife had not been watching TV, but when she arose later to take our daughter to school, I informed her, and said, "Be careful out there. Bad things are happening."