story887.xml

story887.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-07-12

Around 8:45am, I went to grab some coffee from a street vendor near my office. On the way back into work, someone in the lobby told me that a plane had hit the Pentagon. When I returned to my desk, all of my co-workers were standing at one computer, and I asked if they had heard. They said they had heard a plane hit the WTC. I told them about the plane hitting the Pentagon, and we all stood there in silence. Clearly, it was not a coincidence.

We watched the footage on-line of the planes hitting the buildings in NY, and were then told that there was a bomb threat next door. We moved to another side of the office, and were trying to decide what to do. I had heard from various people via IM that there were bombs going off all over the city. Fortunately, all of the rumors turned out to be false-but at the time, we were afraid to leave the building. We waited a few hours, and then decided to walk out of DC instead of taking the Metro.

I walked down M St, towards Georgetown and across the Key Bridge. I could see smoke billowing from the Pentagon as I crossed into Virginia.