Millions of people turned to the Internet on Tuesday for news about the terrorist strikes in New York and Washington, D.C.

        Millions quickly found out that national news Web sites were frequently unavailable. Local Web sites and Internet access services also reported sharp spikes in traffic volume.

        With the Internet in gridlock, many users relied on nonstop television and radio coverage for the latest video clips and developments.

        “I tried to get through to CNN, MSNBC and some other sites, but I couldn't get through. The traffic must be incredible,” said Steve Outing, an Internet technology expert who writes a column for Editor & Publisher magazine.

        “That always happens when there's some sort of big event. Most of the bigger sites are prepared for pretty big traffic spikes, but this one must have been beyond the pale,” Mr.Outing said.

        Cincinnati Bell, which runs the Zoomtown high-speed Internet access service, reported that traffic was up but did not have specific numbers. Users were advised to use local instead of national Web sites if possible to reduce the burden on the national sites, spokeswoman Libby Krosec said.

        James Jackson, director of new media for the Cincinnati Enquirer and Cincinnati Post, said the newspapers' joint Web site, Cincinnati.com, was seeing about 20 times the level of normal traffic, which appears to be a record.

        With the help of Cincinnati Bell, officials were able to increase the bandwidth for Cincinnati.com by about 450 percent by 11:30 a.m.

        Cincinnati.com, as well as news Web sites for WCPO Channel 9 and WLWT Channel 5, temporarily redesigned their sites Tuesday, including dropping advertising, to make them more efficient, Mr.Jackson said.

        “We don't have the exact number of hits, but we're seeing tens of thousands of people turning to Cincinnati.com,” Mr. Jackson said. “The Internet is swamped right now. People are having enormous difficulties getting to any national news Web site. There's never been anything like this before.”

        Use also was up at Time Warner Cable, which provides the local Road Runner high-speed access service, spokeswoman Jennifer Mooney said.

        “Usually about 10 percent of our users go to our (Around Town) news page. Today, at least 25 percent were going there,” Ms.Mooney said.

        In New York, America Online's Instant Messenger service was sporadic and AOL's dial-up connections in New York were constantly busy, although the service was reachable by making long-distance calls to Chicago.

        MSNBC.com, the most popular news site on the Web, was working without problems, but spokesman Ben Billingsley said technicians had removed graphics from the site to allow users to access the news faster.

        Mr. Billingsley said he expected traffic to be “enormous” on the news site but that for now they were “concentrating our efforts on covering the story.”

        Keynote Systems Inc., which measures Internet performance, said that by late morning, the Web sites it tracked took slightly longer to reach — more than four seconds instead of the average 3.5. No breakouts for news sites were immediately available.

        Spokeswoman Mary Lindsay said Keynote did not find any widespread problems with the Internet's central backbones. But she expected to confirm regional outages as the company continued its analyses.

        “... Once we check into it a little further, we expect that we'll find regional problems as a result of the attacks,” Ms.Lindsay said.

        Enquirer reporter Mike Boyer and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
       

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