Throwback Thursday - 9-11-2001

9.11.2001

13 years later and the memory of that day is fresh. Remembering 9-11 floods me with a wash of emotions as real as the emotions I felt that day. Some have said "don't wallow,' others have repeated therapist's advice to tell and re-tell the events so that the emotions are no longer attached. I do neither of those things...I live my life and every once in a while, a sound, a picture, or a date brings back the day with clarity.

I was in my office on Capitol Hill. We had the television turned to the national news, a report was being broadcast about a plane hitting a skyscraper in New York city. We watched, live, as the second plane hit. I called my boss, we were told to evacuate...in those pre-9-11 days there were no plans for what to do if we were attacked, no evacuation drills. On the street hundreds were exiting the buildings, some walking, others trying to get to their cars. It was the days before everyone had a cell phone, those who did have cell phones were unable to get a signal.

Outside, we heard the explosion as, what we now know was a third plane, hit the Pentagon. We saw the smoke. Heard the sirens. A police officer told us to get away from the Capitol. There were still unaccounted for planes. The Capitol was a target. Someone else said they'd heard the bridges out of DC were closed. Others said they'd heard the Old Executive Office Building, next to the White House, had been hit.

The skies were eerily silent and the streets were loud with the sound of sirens and cars packed into traffic jams. People were silent, their faces stony with stunned looks.

Quite a few of us ended up huddled on the floor of a Congressman's apartment. He had only one chair and no television. We listened to the radio for news and were reminded of Pearl Harbor. None of us could reach our families through cell phones. The Congressman had a land line telephone, so he called his staff in a distant state, gave them the contact information for all our families and had his staff call our families to tell them we were safe.

We learned of the downed plane in Pennsylvania. We wept for all those lost.




Sometime after 5:00pm the streets were clear enough for us to head home. Washington, DC was silent, hushed. I got my car and drove people out of the city, to their homes, to train stations. We drove past the smoking Pentagon with it's blackened void.

9.11.2001 I will never ever forget. A world shattered and the pieces still falling back into place.








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9-11-2001 Impressions

I had just returned to my office, on Capitol Hill, after a week’s vacation at the beach. It was a beautiful September morning, clear and cool, bright blue skies. We had the morning news running on the office television, they were reporting an “accident,” an airplane had hit one of the New York skyscrapers – I called my boss, something didn’t feel right, I wanted to find out what he knew. As we watched the news report, as I was on the phone with my boss, we saw the second plane hit the other tower. This was deliberate.

We evacuated. On the street we heard sirens, and a large explosion. We knew we were under attack. Street rumors were that the explosion was a plane hitting the Old Executive Office Building, later I found out it was the Pentagon. We could see the smoke in the sky.

One of my staff, Scott, went to get his wife; she worked for (then) Congressman Gutknecht of Minnesota. My other staffer, Cari, and I got in my car to drive out of Washington. We had heard the 14^th Street Bridge into Virginia was closed, so we headed for Maryland. The streets were gridlocked, police were trying to direct traffic. The faces of the people on the sidewalks were stunned, some in tears. I managed to get one phone call out to my boyfriend – I told him I was okay and trying to get home, I asked him to call my family. The cell phone lines were jammed.

Cari was able to get Scott on his phone – he and his wife were at Congressman Gutknecht’s apartment on the Senate side of Capitol Hill. We were invited to join them since we couldn’t get out of the city. We entered the apartment – it was barely furnished, and there were about twenty people already there – mostly young staffers – sitting on the floor around a radio. The Congressman didn’t have a television. We listened to the news reports. The Congressman was gracious and calming. He sent some of us out to the local sandwich shop to get food for everyone. He wrote an speech to his constituents in Minnesota, comparing 9-11 to Pearl Harbor, he dictated it over his landline to his office in Minnesota. Then he collected the names and phone numbers of all of our families and had his Minnesota office call our families to tell them we were all right. The cell phone lines were still jammed.

By early evening Cari and I thought we’d try again to get out of the city. It was eerily quiet; all the airplanes had been grounded. Most of the traffic was gone and the sidewalks were empty. We drove into Virginia, we could see black smoke and the wreckage of the Pentagon, and I could smell the charring. I dropped Cari at the train station and headed home. I went to the basement, unpacked my American flag, and hung it on the front door.

The next morning, our office was open, the point was to show the terrorists that work would continue, and they could not, would not shut down Congress, shut down America.

The sky was crystal blue, but DC was quiet, hushed. It seemed that even the birds were silent. Airplanes were still grounded. The Pentagon gaped with a huge black hole. There were tanks parked at the bridges into DC.

On the Hill, we all greeted each other in the hallways, on the elevators. We knew we’d been a target, we knew we were survivors.

September 2001