ROME -- When the Northeast Air Defense Sector in Rome learned that hijacked aircrafts were being used to attack the United States, controllers on the operations floor had to do their best to track aircrafts with radar that primarily focused outside the U.S.

"We were really going off reports from the FAA and what we call 'going old school.'  Manually trying to figure out if a plane was at this location and this heading, altitude and speed. We would - what we call dead reckoning - figure out where he would be after a certain period of time," said Col. Dawne Deskins. 

A lot has changed for the Rome center since 9/11. It is now know as the Eastern Air Defense Sector and now monitors all air traffic east of the Mississippi River as well as over the Atlantic Ocean. The old analog radar screens are gone, replaced by state of the art digital radar. Partnerships between different agencies have also seen an upgrade. 

"FAA, TSA, FBI, all those different entities we now interact with them daily. Where as on September 11th, getting information was, very, very difficult," said Col. Deskins.

Reminders of September 11th, 2001 are all around the Eastern Air Defense Sector - including rubble from the Trade Center Towers, the Pentagon and Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Col. Deskins says crews here have worked to maintain the sense of urgency from that day.

"There is a sense that they are always on the edge of their seat. They are ready to react if something happens and there's that sense of how quickly it can all occur and that goes back to September 11th," said Col. Deskins.