By Staff
I remember it as if it was yesterday. A moment frozen in time – like the memory of Kennedy's assassination and the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion – seared onto our collective memories.
It was Sept. 11, 2001.
I was working three blocks from the White House.
Airplanes had flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center complex in New York City and my neighbor, who worked in the White House complex, was calling to say a plane was circling Washington.
The White House complex was being evacuated.
The terrorist at the controls of American Airlines Flight 77, apparently unable to see the White House, eventually refocused on the Pentagon and crashed moments later.
On that fateful day, I stared out the window of my office at the corner of 14th and L streets in Washington D.C., stunned by what I saw.
People were running in the streets trying to flee the area surrounding the White House.
Cars and buses sat gridlocked, their drivers honking horns to no avail.
It was like a scene from the movie "Independence Day" when everyone fled the alien attack.
How could this be happening? This was the United States of America. Things like this don't just happen here.
My morning started out benign enough. I caught the bus near my home in northern Virginia, rode it to the Metro station and caught the train into town. My 90-minute commute was nothing but routine.
I read the paper, finished the crossword puzzle and marveled at the melting pot of citizenry that rode the train into our nation's capital.
Shortly after settling in to my morning routine as the first person to arrive at the office, my phone rang.
It was my mother calling from Niles.
"Did you see a plane crashed into the World Trade Center?" she anxiously asked.
I ran to the conference room to turn on the TV and stared in utter horror at the North Tower burning. What had happened?
Did a sightseeing plane veer off course? Did a helicopter malfunction? I sat in numbed silence as the second plane entered the screen and flew into the South Tower. WHAT?!?!?
Joined by my co-workers and, fielding telephone calls from family and friends, we all sat and wondered what was happening.
There was a stillness in that conference room that I can still feel when I think of that day.
I retreated to my office when the cell phone call came in from my neighbor.
Outgoing and incoming calls were becoming more and more difficult to accomplish.
I discovered e-mail was the best way to assure family and friends that I was OK – so far.
My boss had recommended we stay put for the time being.
The streets were gridlocked, the metro was crowded and chaos reigned.
"Another plane is headed for D.C.," was my neighbor's last frantic message to me.
Still glued to the set, unable and unwilling to flee into the maelstrom that gripped the city, my co-workers and I watched and waited.
The horror of the day continued when the first tower collapsed. I couldn't believe my eyes. Mere moments before it was a towering inferno … people were jumping from broken windows, paper flew in the air like confetti during a ticker-tape parade and we held out hope that survivors would be rescued. It was reduced to a pile before our eyes.
My co-workers and I maintained our vigil in the conference room. The mayor of Washington declared a State of Emergency. A place crashed in Pennsylvania. The second tower collapsed. We couldn't move.
As the horror sunk in and day wore on, our boss finally said we should leave.
The FAA had grounded all planes, Air Force fighter jets were circling the city and he felt it was finally safe enough for us to venture home.
The stench of smoke from the Pentagon filled the air.
This WAS real.
I made it home safely, and hugged my teenage son when I picked him up at school early.
We watched the news as long as we could and discussed the day's events until we fell into a fitful night's sleep.
I commuted into the city the next day and emerged from the train tunnel to a whole new world.
Armed National Guardsmen and armored vehicles were positioned at nearly every intersection. Streets around the White House complex were blocked off to vehicle traffic – and some remain so to this day!
Once again my coworkers and I gathered in the conference room to discuss the events of the previous day, the grounding of flights and their effect on our business, the logistics for our board of directors meeting that had to be canceled and other extraneous issues.
At lunch, I took a walk past the armed National Guardsmen on high alert and wound up on the National Mall.
I stood between the Capitol and the Washington Monument.
It was a beautiful, sunny day, and I remember looking at the dome and envisioning the closing scene from the movie "Independence Day," when the president addressed the nation in front of a wrecked Capitol.
That could have happened.
I could be seeing that very scene if events had transpired differently.
It was a sobering thought commingling fantasy and reality.
I remember that day as if it just happened.
The sights. The sounds. The smells. The emotions. The hatred for an enemy that had yet to be identified.
And I am thankful and proud that I live in a country where such events make us stronger as a nation and stronger as people.