story1720.xml

story1720.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-04

I will never forget what a beautiful day it was in washington: blue skies, sun shining down, a very comfortable temperature in the low to mid-70s. Afetr the events occurred, and everyone poured into the streets, the scene was like one of those disaster movies from the 1970s -- traffic jammed up, people trying to get out of the downtown area on foor. Rumors were flying everywhere: tehre's a fire burning on the mall, the Pentagon's been hit by a plane. Entire city blocks were roped off, with policemen standing guard. They said there had been bomb threats. It was very strange. By the time I finally got up to DuPont Circle and ducked into a tavern, the TV screens were showing the images of the towers collapsing. I refused to believe it was true. I thought the TV announcers must have gotten it wrong. Tat's when I found out that teh Pentagon had been hit, and that teh plane had circled over downtown Washington before going back to Virginia and turning around to hit the Pentagon. I felt like those of us who work near the White House (about two blocks from my office) may have had our lives saved by the heroism of the passangers on the plane that went down in Pennsylvania. September 11th will be forever with me. I still think about it almost every day.