lc_story190.xml

lc_story190.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2004-01-04

was at work at the Treasury Annex in Washington, DC when our office manager came in and said a plane had hit the World Trade Center. We went down to another office to view the news, and saw the footage of the second plane hitting the World Trade Center. We knew then it was no accident. I went back to work. A short time later the office manager told me the Pentagon had been bombeed and hadn't I better send a message out to the computer incident response teams. I had just finished the e-mail message, when we were told to evacuate the building. Anyone that should go to the Emergency Response Center (EMC) was to go to the first floor. Since I was in charge of incident response, I packed up my laptop computer and went down to the first floor along with the office manager. We were told we could not stay in the building, so we relocated to 1425 New York Ave. On the way we heard an explosion behind us. The cop near us lost it and started yelling for everyone to get out of there. We arrived at 1425 New York Ave offices and it was decided that the EMC should relocate to the facility that was being set up for the World Bank demonstrations. We had to walk to this facility, since you couldn't use a car at all in the city at that time. We were redirected once due to a dog sniffing explosives in a car. When we finally got to the facility, our first job was to find the executives. Luckily by then pagers had started working again, so we could contact them and find out where they were. My sister also paged me from Delaware to find out if I was OK. I called her back and told her I was safe. I also left messages for my mother to tell her I was safe. When I finally found an analog outlet, I was able to dial in and check my e-mail. I had a message from my sister-in-law asking if I was OK. I sent a reply stating that I was. I periodically dialed in during the day to see if there were any messages from FedCIRC or the NIPC. There was one later in the day that I forwarded to everyone. I even called FedCIRC to inform them where I was and ask if there were any computer related incidents - there were none. Otherwise, we spent the day watching the news coverage on a large screen. At 6PM I was released to go home. The streets were deserted. Metro was running so I was able to use it to get to Springfield. The office manager had his car there, so he was nice enough to give me a ride home. We had to report to the EMC for 12 hour shifts through that weekend. When I got home, I called my girlfriend who worked at the Pentagon. She was fine - it just took her a long time to get home.

Mass confusion. No one really knew what was going on, where to go, or what to do. We really had no emergency response plans to address this kind of emergency. Employees were evacuated without any instructions - do they just stand outside, go home, or what? If the White House had been attacked, there would have been a lot of people in the streets that could have gotten injured.

I saw the footage of the building falling numerous times that day, but it was only in late afternoon when I realized that everyone had not been able to get out.

I think first of all we have become more conscious of the need to plan for emergencies and train for them. We have also realized there is an enemy within far more insidious than the communists of old.

Personally, the first time I flew after 9-11 was overseas to a convention in Sweden. The first leg of the flight I was very nervous. After that I was OK. I have recognized that if another attack comes, it comes. You can't hibernate, or limit what you do based upon the threat of attack. If you do, they have won.