story143.xml
Title
story143.xml
Source
born-digital
Media Type
story
Date Entered
2002-03-05
911DA Story: Story
Shortly after I got to work in the Ford House Office Building that day, a colleague's wife called him from home in the suburbs to tell him to switch on a television, to see what was happening in New York City.
As soon as he saw the video of the first plane colliding with the tower, he yelped and called out to the three of us then in the office. We watched, appalled, as the television showed it happening a second time. Scarcely able to gather our thoughts, we agreed that it could have been an accident the first time, but not the second.
The woman with children at home was calling her sitter when, without video at first, the television told us that the Pentagon had now been hit. Our supervisor arrived for work and gave us all permission to leave if we wanted. Two were preparing to do this, but not me. However, when I called home and found the phone suddenly dead, I changed my mind. All the phones were dead, in and out. Cell phones were not working.
Before someone switched off the television, the first tower fell. We were gathering up our things to leave for home when two young military types knocked at the office door and told us to evacuate. They stayed and watched to ensure we left. Later we learned they were police cadets in a training class in our building and two had been assigned to clear each floor.
My route home is via the Metro subway. I felt some reluctance to descend to the station. Passengers suddenly arriving from all the federal buildings in the area were asking each other what was safest--to stay in the city or travel home to the outskirts. No-one knew what the next targets might be. Bridges and tunnels seemed obvious possibilities. The subway system itself may have been targeted.
Regardless, we were being told to go home. The cars were jammed with shaken people. Strangers talked, over and over having to repeat what we call saw on television, to cope with it and absorb the reality. At the connecting station for the Blue Line, some military men who had been in the Pentagon got on. They had escaped from the undamaged section but spoke of terrible damage and hundreds of deaths. At that time, it was not clear that, again, the weapon was a plane, and they thought the helicopter pads at the Pentagon had been blown up.
My cell phone would not work, although it normally does in the trains and stations, until I was outside the station at the end of the line. Finally I was able to call my husband and reassure him I was okay.
Our son, the other family member who lives in the area, called later to say his private sector organization had been send home. He would like to come to us, his parents, instead of to his house. We spend the day gaping at the television together, glad to be alive and well,but horrified at what had happened and what it would portend.
As soon as he saw the video of the first plane colliding with the tower, he yelped and called out to the three of us then in the office. We watched, appalled, as the television showed it happening a second time. Scarcely able to gather our thoughts, we agreed that it could have been an accident the first time, but not the second.
The woman with children at home was calling her sitter when, without video at first, the television told us that the Pentagon had now been hit. Our supervisor arrived for work and gave us all permission to leave if we wanted. Two were preparing to do this, but not me. However, when I called home and found the phone suddenly dead, I changed my mind. All the phones were dead, in and out. Cell phones were not working.
Before someone switched off the television, the first tower fell. We were gathering up our things to leave for home when two young military types knocked at the office door and told us to evacuate. They stayed and watched to ensure we left. Later we learned they were police cadets in a training class in our building and two had been assigned to clear each floor.
My route home is via the Metro subway. I felt some reluctance to descend to the station. Passengers suddenly arriving from all the federal buildings in the area were asking each other what was safest--to stay in the city or travel home to the outskirts. No-one knew what the next targets might be. Bridges and tunnels seemed obvious possibilities. The subway system itself may have been targeted.
Regardless, we were being told to go home. The cars were jammed with shaken people. Strangers talked, over and over having to repeat what we call saw on television, to cope with it and absorb the reality. At the connecting station for the Blue Line, some military men who had been in the Pentagon got on. They had escaped from the undamaged section but spoke of terrible damage and hundreds of deaths. At that time, it was not clear that, again, the weapon was a plane, and they thought the helicopter pads at the Pentagon had been blown up.
My cell phone would not work, although it normally does in the trains and stations, until I was outside the station at the end of the line. Finally I was able to call my husband and reassure him I was okay.
Our son, the other family member who lives in the area, called later to say his private sector organization had been send home. He would like to come to us, his parents, instead of to his house. We spend the day gaping at the television together, glad to be alive and well,but horrified at what had happened and what it would portend.
Collection
Citation
“story143.xml,” September 11 Digital Archive, accessed January 9, 2025, https://911digitalarchive.org/items/show/7344.