Garth Brooks was in New York City Tuesday morning (Sept. 11) at the time of the air terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. “He’s here to fulfill some other obligations for Read Across America –- some PSAs and things,” said Brooks’ spokeswoman, Karen Byrd, reached on her cell phone in New York. “We were on our way to the studio where he’s going to do the PSAs,” she said.

“It’s chaotic,” Byrd added. “Traffic’s at a standstill. I’ve been able to make some calls on my cell phone. Nobody knows what’s going on.” Byrd and Brooks were trying to return to their midtown hotel when country.com reached them.

“Everybody’s all right,” she said.

Brooks had been scheduled to attend an event in his honor Tuesday night (Sept. 11) at the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C., but that has been canceled. The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers were to present him with their Golden Note Award. Byrd was uncertain about when Brooks and his party would be able to leave New York.

Mary Chapin Carpenter saw the burning World Trade Center towers as she made her way into Manhattan after a 7 a.m. flight from Washington, D.C., to New York’s LaGuardia Airport.

Carpenter and her band members went to an Upper Manhattan hotel. “She’s in shock and unable to comment,” a spokeswoman for her record label said. Carpenter was to have taped a public television show, Life 360, but that taping has been postponed.

Billy Gilman, in New York to participate in Michael Jackson’s 30th anniversary celebration Monday night at Madison Square Garden, was still in the city on Tuesday morning, a spokeswoman confirmed. His father, Bill Gilman, was making plans to drive to New York from the family’s home in Rhode Island.