Shortly After 9:03 a.m. September 11, 2001: Secret Service Activates Crisis Center to Coordinate Response to Attacks

Brian Stafford, the director of the Secret Service, activates the Director’s Crisis Center (DCC) at Secret Service headquarters in order to manage the Secret Service’s response to the terrorist attacks. [Secret Service, 9/11/2001; United States Secret Service, 10/1/2001] The DCC is located on the ninth floor of the Secret Service headquarters in Washington, DC, and is used to direct operations in emergencies. [Kessler, 2009, pp. 23-24] It is unclear exactly when it is activated. Larry Cockell, the deputy director of the Secret Service, will later say that the crisis center is activated after he receives “a call from the duty desk” informing him “that we were getting intelligence that there was a potential hijacking.” [Peter Schnall, 10/24/2004] According to a Secret Service timeline provided to the 9/11 Commission, it is activated at 9:00 a.m. [Secret Service, 9/11/2001] But Danny Spriggs, the assistant director of the Secret Service’s Office of Protective Operations, will say that Stafford makes the decision to activate the DCC “after the two airplanes crashed into the World Trade Center towers,” meaning some time after 9:03 a.m. [United States Secret Service, 10/1/2001] Stafford apparently thought the first crash at the WTC (see 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001) was accidental, and only realized a terrorist attack was under way when the second plane hit the WTC at 9:03 a.m. (see 9:03 a.m. September 11, 2001). “I thought and hoped that it was an accident,” he will recall. “But when the second one hit, we knew that it wasn’t.” [Peter Schnall, 10/24/2004] Spriggs will say that when he arrives at the DCC, at around 9:35 a.m., Stafford and Cockell are already there (see (9:35 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [United States Secret Service, 10/1/2001] However, although the DCC is activated now, the Secret Service will not implement an “emergency call-up” of all its personnel until after 9:37 a.m., when the Pentagon is hit (see After 9:37 a.m. September 11, 2001). [US News and World Report, 12/1/2002]