RICHMOND, Va. -- Wall-to-wall news coverage for an unprecedented attack -- on September 11, 2001, journalists clocked in for a marathon of an assignment, including reporters, anchors and photojournalists at 8News. "In my going on 38 years of being in the TV business, that whole experience, it'll ne ver leave me. I remember a lot of it vividly," said Paul Nevadomski, 8News' chief photojournalist. Local stations were limited to cut-ins that day. This means anchors, reporters and producers filled in viewers about local happenings, like downtown closures and plane groundings at Richmond International Airport. The overwhelming majority of news came from networks. The 8News morning crew at the time, reporter Morgan Dean and photojournalist Howie Williams, were sent to the airport. Williams, originally from Brooklyn, was clouded with thoughts of "what ifs" thinking about family and friends still living in New York. "It was hard, because, knowing that I had to do what I needed to do, because I was working, I wanted to call and make sure, 'hey, does so-and-so still work in the World Trade Center or in the vicinity in that area?'" Williams said. "When you can't get in touch with anybody because you got to do your job, it's a little difficult because that's what stayed on my mind the whole time." Dean said at the airport, passengers of planes diverted to RIC crowded around small TVs playing network news to try to understand the magnitude of what was happening. "I'm trying to be objective and I'm like, okay, what's the story? How's the story? And we're shooting video which can be kind of tough sometimes when you're seeing people in such emotional distress but that's part of how you tell that story," Dean said. Former 8News Anchor John Reid felt a similar sentiment about remaining stoic while balancing tough emotions. An 8News crew was also sent to the Pentagon. Because of a traffic standstill, they didn't arrive until around 2:30 that afternoon. "We got there on Tuesday and stayed until Friday. What we were wearing is what we had," Nevadomski said. At the Pentagon, journalists scoured troops, volunteers and visitors paying respects. "The next day, we were assembled shoulder-to-shoulder all doing live shots. That's when they draped the American Flag over the side of the Pentagon and I think collectively that's when the magnitude of the situation hit because at that moment, you could hear a pin drop," Nevadomski said. "I remember doing a live shot one of the mornings. As the sun came up, I could suddenly see it. There were just American Flags on every house down that street and I thought, you know? You might've seen that around the Fourth of July, but you probably wouldn't see that in mid-September, but here we are after 9/11 and people are saying, what's my part in all of this? What can I do? And how does America get back on its feet? What's the next step? And I think a lot of people just said, you know what? I'm going to put my flag out because that's at least a visible sign that I can do. And it was just that kind of moment as I stood there after that live shot and I just looked kind of down and was like, okay," Dean said. ...read more read less