After the first Twin towers impacts the FAA issued an "ATC ground zero decree" command initially for New York area and then for the whole of the USA. This is basically to get all aircraft out of their airspace or on the ground asap.
The point was made that there was no manuals for thi, so no procedures, which of course was the first time one had ever been issued.
Journalistic inexactitude or, if you prefer, rubbish !
The US had a such plan and procedure dating back to the cold war, and it had occasionally been simulated as an exercise.
The salient terms are
SCATANA and
ESCAT which you can google or start here:
http://www.faa.gov/atpubs/MIL/Apdices/milapd17.html
The fact that this plan was not initially followed on Sept 11 was due to the much-documented communications and command chain failures, and possibly that the FAA head (Mineta) did not know it existed !