story151.xml

story151.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-03-06

I had been working at my desk for several hours when a friend came by and said, "Did you hear?" Although I usually had a radio on in the background while I worked, for some reason I had never turned it on that morning. "A plane crashed into the World Trade Center," she continued. I quickly typed in The Washington Post's Web address, but my browser just kept indicating it was "contacting host." Then my friend said, "Well they have the news on in the conference room."

I went down to the conference room and there were 3 people sitting watching a large screen TV showing images of black smoke pouring out of both of twin towers. The second tower had been struck just before I walked to the conference room. One of the people in the conference room said, "Another plane just flew into the other tower." I sat down and listened as the television commentators tried to come to grips with what happened. They were all just beginning to realize that perhaps the first crash had not been an accident.

As I strained to hear the reports, I became aware of rather heated discussion in the conference room. A couple of guys were attempting to prepare the room for a conference call and we were all in the way. I decided not to add to the overall confusion and returned to my office.

A couple of people stopped by my office to ask if I was aware of what was going on up in New York. I had turned my radio on and scanned the internet but I discovered that beyond bulletins reporting the crashes there were few details. I did my best to focus on work. I wanted to know what was going on but felt as though I needed to keep working until the news agencies had more to report.

The window in my office has a magnificent view of the Capitol Dome. At one point I looked up from my computer and out at the Capitol. The dome was framed by billowing black smoke. I could tell that the smoke was coming from somewhere beyond the Capitol building itself, but something was definitely not right. I step out my door to ask if anyone else had seen the smoke and all I found was silence. There wasn't a soul in sight. I wandered around the suite and discovered a couple of people in an office watching a TV. When I mentioned the smoke they told me that the Pentagon had been hit by an airplane.

We stood there watching and making uncomfortable small talk until the first tower collapsed. Stunned, I wandered back out into the suite and my boss walked by quickly and said that they had closed the building.

I tried to call my wife at work, but the line was busy so I quickly gathered my things and headed out the door. As I walked to the elevator, I passed a colleague who was a Metro rider. We had already been hearing conflicting reports that the Metro was jammed or not running so I offered him a ride home which he accepted.

I made the unfortunate mistake of driving one block in the direction of the Capitol. Immediately we came to a stand still as employees of the Senate offices flooded across the streets toward Union Station. As soon as possible we inched our way to the side streets to get away from the pedestrian traffic. We went due north away from the Capitol.

As I drove, my colleague scanned the radio and we tried to piece together what happened. At some point we realized the other tower in New York must have also collapsed. Every intersection had police cruisers and a group of DC police officers keeping the traffic flowing northward. It was amazing how quickly the authorities were out in the streets. We found it very reassuring.

As soon as we were able, we turned west about 20 or 30 blocks north of the Capitol. Driving was then very easy and we rather quickly arrived at my colleague's apartment in northwest DC. I asked him to call my wife or at least my answering machine at home to let them know I was on my way. The ride home was very eerie. Whenever I neared a Metro stop there were waves and waves of people in business dress walking along the streets. Traffic slowed when the side streets I was on crossed a major intersection, which I attributed to the police presence.

My wife was home when I got there. She had seen the Pentagon smoke from her office as well, and she was visibly shaken. I drove my younger daughter's babysitter home and was home by around 1pm. My older daughter attends the elementary school behind our house, but the parents were informed that we were to pick up our children at the normal hour. The school closed its shades, locked its doors and conducted classes as usual. They made the judgement to do nothing to alarm the children and leave it to the parents to tell their kids what they felt was appropriate later that evening.

My wife and I took turns watching the news and playing with the kids until their bedtime. Then she and I watched the reports until around 11pm. At that point my wife just couldn't stand to watch the same horrifying images anymore and went to bed to read. I watched the news reports until around 3am on the 12th.