Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource September 11 Digital Archive Stories Description An account of the resource This collection is the bulk of the archive, representing the reactions and experiences of thousands of individuals beginning in 2002. 911DA Story 911DA Story: Story Tell us about what you did, saw, or heard on September 11th. Feel free to write as much or as little as you like. Tell us your story: I'd been in the office for a couple of hours already, and some of the other members of staff were just arriving for the day, when someone walked in to say a plane had hit one of the twin towers. The first impression most of us had was that it was a small private plane, thrown off course by a stricken pilot. So we proceeded on with our day. When she returned a few minutes later to say the other tower had been hit, our impression of the event began to change--obviously this wasn't a coincidence--and yet the scale seemed fairly small. It was inconceivable that this could be something large enough to do serious damage. I called my wife (a New York native), who was still at home and asked her to pop on the television. The horror in her voice as she saw the first images suggested that this was far more than a couple small planes. The staff variously turned on radios and small television sets, and began searching for information on the Internet. The initial fragmentary reports of evacuations from various buildings in Washington--including the Capitol, which is just four blocks away--created a rising sense of panic in the staff. When the plane struck the Pentagon shortly thereafter, we were swept up in the general panic. One of the ephemeral aspects of the event that is often forgotten, is the wave of false reports that swept D.C. as smoke began to rise from the Pentagon. Because of the short buildings in the city, and the exceptional clarity of the weather, a number of people clearly looked out their windows and saw the smoke without a good sense of perspective. Combined with the rumble of trucks through the city streets, people were calling in reports of bombs going off all over the city, including Capitol Hill. A number of the staff felt convinced that they had heard and felt the reported "explosion" on Capitol Hill. So the horror of the events unfolding on TV became fused with a very real sense of personal danger. At the time, the actual collapse of the towers became lost in the sensory overload of the moment. Gradually, as the false reports were discounted the overwhelming tragedy of the events began to take hold, we began to focus on a desire to get home. The office officially closed around 11:00, but I hung around the office until around 2:30--the roads were jammed with traffic, and my subway ride home takes me under the Pentagon, so the office seemed like the only sensible place to be. So I spent the afternoon answering e-mails and calls from friends and colleagues elsewhere in the country, curious about what was going on in D.C. When I finally left, the most striking thing was the quiet. The normal noises of Capitol Hill were largely absent. Many of the residents seemed to be out on the front steps of their townhouses, talking in hushed tones into their cell phones or to their neighbors. Walking to the Metro I discovered that most of the major routes had been closed by the Capitol Hill police, who had set up flares and positioned vehicles across the main intersections. The enormity of the day was reinforced on the subway ride home, as we emerged from a tunnel by National Airport, you could see that it was completely devoid of life, save for a few police vehicles. And glancing back the way we had come, you could still see the edge of smoke rising from the Pentagon. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource story170.xml 911DA Item Elements describing a September 11 Digital Archive item. Status The process status of this item. approved Consent Whether September 11 Digital Archive has permission to possess this item. full Posting Whether the contributor gave permission to post this item. yes Copyright Whether the contributor holds copyright to this item. yes Source The source of this item. born-digital Media Type The media type of this item. story Created by Author Whether the author created this item. yes Described by Author Whether the description of this item was submitted by the author. no Date Entered The date this item was entered into the archive. 2002-03-07 IP Address The IP address of the device used to submit the item. 65.204.249.78 Annotation Annotations to this item. Gov't workers (non-military and non-rescue) Rumors Struggle to get home DC:2