"Today Is Pearl Harbor": Newly released emails offer glimpse of what it was like to be at the White House on 9/11

From Yahoo Politics:

We all knew where President George W. Bush was when he first learned of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks: at an elementary school in Sarasota, Fla., where he was reading “The Pet Goat” to a group of second-grade students when his chief of staff, Andy Card, informed him of a second attack on the World Trade Center.
“America is under attack,” Card told Bush, according to Ari Fleischer, the former White House press secretary.
But a series of emails released by the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum, published by the New York Times on Thursday, provide a unique window into what was happening back at the White House that horrific morning.
At 8:56 a.m. ET, Tucker Eskew, director of the White House media affairs offices, emailed three colleagues with this message:
“Turn on CNN.”About 15 minutes later, Tracey Schmitt, a White House aide, notified colleagues that the 9:30 a.m. budget meeting and a congressional conference call had been canceled.
At 9:20 a.m., David Horowitz, a conservative writer, emailed Mary Matalin, then counselor to Vice President Dick Cheney, with a historical comparison.
“Today is Pearl Harbor.”Meanwhile, friends and family send concerned messages to White House aides:
Clay Johnson, the president’s longtime friend and now White House aide, receives this from his sister, Ellen.
12:13 p.m. — “Are you safe? Hard to fathom what’s going on today. Hope you and [sic] safe and sound.”Karen Hughes [the president’s counselor] receives this from an aide, reassuring her about friends and colleagues.
12:45 p.m. — “Mark and Rachel are okay. Brenda Anders also ok.”Ms. Hughes receives this from Douglas Fletcher, her pastor and friend in Texas.
1:10 p.m. — “Dear Karen, I am in disbelief. You are in my prayers as is the president. I realize that were a country behind this, we would now be at war. We have services today at 12:45 and 5:30. We will keep you in our prayers. I am attaching some notes from my meditation on Psalm 23. I love you, Doug.”