An Employee's Memories of 9/11

I was in Washington, DC on 9/11 in 2001. When the first plane hit the first tower in NYC, I was sitting at my desk beginning my workday. A colleague popped his head in and said a plane had hit one of the World Trade towers, the news folks thought it was a small plane that had veered off course, but there was a lot of smoke.

We headed down the hall to a room with a TV. The room was slowly filling up as folks came in to catch a glimpse of what appeared to be an awful accident, but an accident nonetheless. Over the next few hours we would all go from rubberneckers to stunned disbelief, as we watched, literally watched the second plane hit the second tower, and got news that the Pentagon, not three miles from our Dupont Circle offices, had also been hit.

Our CEO called the staff together and told us to go home to our families if we could, or to stay in the offices if we couldn't, and that our needs would be taken care of. I set off immediately, headed to my fiancé and my home in Alexandria, on the other side of the White House, across the Potomac, on the other side of the Pentagon, past National Airport. A gauntlet of the most high-security zones. 

The streets were packed as I stepped outside. Traffic was bumper to bumper as everyone tried to get out of downtown, get away from the monuments and the White House, which seemed like the likeliest targets. I was headed right toward them. I caught snippets of conversation as I started toward the nearest metro station. It was closed. Some said the whole system was closed. So I kept walking. Streets were being cordoned off around the White House as I walked. As I tried to skirt around, and keep as direct a path as I could to the 14th Street bridge, more and more streets were being blocked off. I wasn't even sure I was going to be able to get across the bridge, much less to it.

Then I saw folks going down into a metro station. I followed, and the trains were running. I caught the blue line for home, headed to the King Street stop. The train was packed. We traveled at normal speed, right through the Pentagon stop (not surprisingly) straight on to the Pentagon City stop. There, everyone was offloaded. I'm not sure of this, but it seemed they were just getting people across the river, the rest was up to us.

When I came out of the metro stop, the streets were again packed. It was a clear, sunny, beautiful day, but as I turned around, I saw the Pentagon billowing black smoke. It was shocking to see. Everything I'd seen to that point was on TV. Now, here it was, maybe half a mile away. There were a lot of other folks who came up out of the metro with me, and we all stopped at least for a moment, some turning away quickly, others staying. Some crying. Most staring. I stared too, feeling sad, angry, frustrated, with nothing to do with those emotions at the moment but go home and find out more about what was going on.

I started to walk. The traffic barely moved. At one point, a plane passed overhead, one of the last planes to land at National Airport as they cleared the airspace. The sound, so normal on any other day, made everyone stop, wondering if that plane was going to hit something, and what it would be, and how many more were coming. 

I made it home safely, and spent the rest of the day watching coverage unfold. I checked in with friends, everyone shaken but thankfully ok. One man I worked with, who lived nearby, had been riding his bike home, and had gone under some of the cordoning tape I mentioned, to take his usual route. He told me that someone had shouted at him to stop, and in his mode of just wanting to get home to his wife, to get away from what was going on, he'd flipped the guy the bird, and the next thing he knew, security personnel were tackling him. They let him go, but he keeps his finger to himself these days.

Things got back to "normal" pretty quickly, everywhere but at the Pentagon and the memorials and government buildings down on the Mall. Planes were grounded for a few days, and when, the Saturday after 9/11, National Airport started clearing the planes from the tarmac, the sound of planes flying again, once so normal, was shattering. Once again, people stopped, looked, wondered. I felt the whole thing over again in my stomach. 

In the years after, DC would suffer many fearful threats. Anthrax in the mail. Dirty bomb scares. The sniper who had people from Fredrick to Fredricksburg looking over their shoulders in parking lots and hiding behind their car doors at gas stations. Those were all rough times, but 9/11 was everyone's time. 

I still have the Washington Post front page from 9/12. It's not a happy memory, but it's one that I'll never forget, never want to forget. Thousands died that day, and we all went through it together, whether we were in New York, DC, Pennsylvania, or anywhere else. It was a horrible time, and yet, it brought us together. I will remember both of those things as I mourn and celebrate those who lost and gave their lives on 9/11.