story2471.xml

story2471.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-11

My office is located in 4A1088D (Pentagon). I was at my desk listening to the radio (WPGC 95.5) I believe. When a breaking news story came through about the first plane that hit the first "tower" in NY. I had a student hire at that time, and she and I were in tuned to the radio. While sitting at our desk listing to the radio, about the first "tower", the second "tower" was hit. While this was going on, I decided to get up from my desk and take a walk trying to digest what I just heard. As I reached our main mail room (4B1062), I stopped to talk to a few of my other co-workers to tell them to turn on the radio for the news. It was approximately 0927. After standing there for approximately five (5) minutes, an enlisted member of our organization came running up the steps warning everyone in his passage to vacate the building because we had been hit by a plane. I immediately ran back to my office warning everyone that went pass me what was going on. When I reached my office, I informed my supervisor and my student employee, and all others that happened to be in my workcenter, what was going on and that we had to evacuate. Since the alarms hadn't been set off yet, we (my student employee and myself) immediately closed up the office, knocked on the other office doors within our passage and informed those individuals to evacuate (and why), and we then proceeded to exit the building. Once we were out side to safety, I immediately started my walk home. I knew I would not be able to take public transportation so I was ready to walk. I just wanted to get home to my kids and my dog. People say that cellular service wasn't working but in actuality it was, but the circuits were so tied up you had to keep trying to get through. I was fortunate enough that day because just as I had approached the Interstate 395 entrance (from the building's parking lot), we flagged down a guy who worked in the building (although we didn't know him) and asked for a ride across the highway. Fortunately for us, this guy happened to live two (2) blocks down the street from my house. I can't remember his name but I will always remember his face, and will be forever grateful to him.