I wore my blue button-collar shirt Thursday.  I hardly wear the shirt, but it's one of my most comfortable in my wardrobe.  I wear it when I'm looking to keep my days cool and relaxed.

I tend to wear no-button collars, because they look a bit more professional on air, and I joked with my wife Thursday, since most of my no-buttons sat in the pile waiting to be ironed (I do the ironing by the way).

Little did I know that blue button-collar would see me through one of the longest days of my broadcast career and find its way onto television screens across the world.

http://twitpic.com/13zi5w

Thursday, KXAN assigned me to a Texas Department of Public Safety Commission meeting to cover the latest security updates to the Texas State Capitol building.  But phone calls started flooding the newsroom just after 10:00 a.m. that a plane crashed into the "Echelon Building" in North Austin.  It had the stereotypical response of a reporter jumping at the chance to cover the story.  I scrambled into a live truck to meet my photographer Mark Batchelder at the scene.  He left about 30 minutes earlier to cover what we know now as Joe Stack's house fire in North Austin.

I took Unit 10, our most dependable live truck, and drove north on MoPac.  Here is what I saw when I started to descend down the crossover ramp from Mopac to 183.  It was a huge cloud of black smoke.  You can also see two Austin motorcycle officers speeding past me. 

http://twitpic.com/14glnp

I pulled the live truck onto the median when I arrived at the scene, luckily, a great spot to give viewers a straight-on view of the plane crash.  The building was engulfed and pieces of the siding were falling to the ground.  My thought?  "There are dozens of bodies inside that building."

http://twitpic.com/14gojz

My photographer, Mark, arrived about 5 minutes later and I started shooting while he set up the live truck.  I also shot this piece of video on my HD Flip Camera to upload to Youtube.

Then...the live shots started, as I tried to get my bearings straight.

I hustled to find one of the most memorable interviews of the day.  Gerry Cullen, a pilot, witnessed the entire scene.  Here's his description of what he saw.

By now, I started to get Facebook messages and tweets from people across the country saying they could see me on CNN and MSNBC. 

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I decided to give another update that I could tweet out to all of my followers.

The liveshots kept going.  I estimate doing about 15-20 throughout the day. 

My only regret?  Giving out information that the Echelon building was 7 stories (we heard that number initially from authorities) and second guessing myself to say the plane hit on the second floor during one of my live shots.  It turns out it was four stories, and the plane actually hit on the first floor.  We corrected that information later in the day.

By far, this was my biggest test of live reporting in my career.  I simply just decided to let the information flow as I saw it.  I was a witness to the scene in front of me just like everyone else.  I wanted to bring people into the incident showing them what I saw. 

I immediately said prayers for the people inside the building before I started reporting and I continue to pray for the people affected by this tragedy.  It is amazing how many people walked away from this.

People are debating the political ramifications of this crash.  That's fine.  We'll report on that, sure.  But none of that mattered in the moments after the crash.  We had to get information out as quickly as possible about what we saw.  I am proud of the work from the KXAN crew to bring viewers the most up-to-date information. 

I'm grateful for the wonderful help of my photographers, editors, producers, and all of the witnesses on scene.

And, I'm thankful I wore that buttoned collar shirt.  I didn't care what it looked like.  It was comfortable and helped me relax on one of the longest days of my career.