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| The Pentagon during rescue operations following 9-11 |
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| The World Trade Center towers disappearing on September 11, 2001 |
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| The crash crater of Flight 93 in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania |
I have written before about the importance of memorializing and preserving our personal experience of clearly historic events. You can see that post
here.
Today is the thirteenth anniversary of the horrendous events of September 11, 2001 -- now known simply and forever meaningfully as "9 -11." On that infamous day I was at work at the Washington Navy Yard within perhaps an hour's walking distance of the Pentagon. Not long after that terrible day, I sat down to write about my personal experience of that national catastrophe so I could preserve my observations for my children and descendants in keeping with the thoughts in the post referenced above.
Since I periodically produce a hardback book of my blog posts using
Blurb (thank you for the tip cousin Heather Wilkinson Rojo!), on this 13th anniversary I want to share an excerpted version of my experience of 9-11 via this post for current readers and for purposes of preserving my experiences in a coming new volume of a hardback print copy of
Filiopietism Prism.
* * * * *
On the morning of
September 11, 2001 I was employed within the Office of the General Counsel of
the Department of the Navy. The office
in which I worked was located on the grounds of the Washington Navy Yard in a
building that sits close to Admiral Leutze Park, a beautiful expanse of manicured
lawn and trees that serves as a ceremonial field for the Navy. The Yard itself is located in southeast
Washington along the Anacostia River.
The Yard is less than two miles as the crow flies from the U.S. Capital and
less than five miles from the Pentagon, which is across the Potomac River in
Virginia. Our office had moved to
The Yard from a high-rise building in Crystal City, Arlington, Virginia just
four years before 9-11. Our former Crystal City office was perhaps a mile down
the road from the Pentagon and was certainly within easy walking distance of
that epicenter of U.S. military power. I had been in the Pentagon on business many times before and after our move to the Navy Yard.
As
usual, on September 11, 2001 I drove into D.C. from our home in western
Loudoun County, Virginia. The distance from our home to where I parked my car
on the Navy Yard was almost exactly 50 miles. My commute took about an hour
since I usually left the house before 5:00 AM each morning. That morning was
dark, clear and dry when I left the house. The temperature was about 60◦ F. As is my habit, I listened to National Public Radio as I drove in
to the office. The traffic was
quite light due to the early hour, but later that morning it would be much
heavier than it had been for months because school had resumed and the school buses
and parents dropping children at school had recently been added to the later
commuting traffic. There was
nothing unusual about the commute in to work that morning. The early weather report promised a
beautiful day and the early traffic report mentioned all was clear with no
accident alerts and no congestion points of note.
By the time I arrived at The Yard dawn was still about 45 minutes away,
but it was obvious we were going to have one of those lovely late summer days
of sun, blue skies, and reasonable humidity. The temperature was in the mid-60s as I walked the hundred
or so yards from my parking space to the building where my office was
located. I could hear a few birds
starting the day with some desultory calls and I saw a couple of the resident
squirrels scampering through the sparsely wooded slope leading down to our
building from Leutze Park. I felt
it was going to be a gorgeous day and I recall thinking I would rather be
hiking up on the Appalachian Trail along the Blue Ridge Mountains just west of
our home than sitting in the office all day – but I had an assigned task to
perform that morning.
Our
office holds a weekly Senior Staff meeting each Tuesday morning. In 2001 the meetings began at 9:00 AM. This particular Tuesday, the leader of
the team I worked on was unavailable to attend “Sr. Staff” because he was flying
out of Washington Dulles Airport that morning bound for San Diego, California
on a business trip. I had been
asked to fill in for him and to represent the team at the Senior Staff meeting. As the start time for Sr. Staff approached, the early promise of a beautiful day was confirmed. My walk next door to
get coffee revealed a wonderfully sunny day with a very few high clouds. The temperature was a crisp and
comfortable 70◦ F with low humidity.
I really wished I could have been hiking that day instead of at work.
Members
of the Senior Staff gathered in the large conference room just down the hall
from the entrance to our office suite a few minutes before 9:00 AM. At that point nothing unusual had been
reported and everyone chatted easily around the huge table as we waited for the
meeting to begin. When the meeting began sharply at 9:00 AM, the Director of
our office sat at the head of the table furthest from the hallway entrance and his
Deputy sat on the side to his immediate left. The rest of us were seated randomly along both sides of the
table at the same end. The light chatter as the meeting got underway gave the
meeting a somewhat informal air.
The
Deputy began the meeting and was just wrapping up discussion of some
administrative item that I cannot recall, when there was a quick knock on the side
entrance to the conference room and an immediate entrance into the meeting by a
colleague. He entered and offered a quick apology for the interruption before
he announced fairly calmly . . .
“I
thought you all should know that another plane has hit the World Trade Center
in New York -- and I am leaving now for home, which some of you might want to
do also.”
There
were immediate questions asked as our colleague hovered briefly in the doorway
holding the door ajar.
“Another plane?” “What kind of planes?”
The
answer was that he was not sure, but it looked like it was not a small Cessna
or commuter plane as originally thought and the most recent report talked about passenger airliners. He said
folks in the office were beginning to call home and to spouses at work and were
surfing the Internet for more information.
The
office had a large-screen TV in the moot courtroom in our office suite and the Director
and Deputy both had very small TVs in their offices where they could monitor
C-SPAN as well as cable news channels.
The meeting was immediately adjourned and all of us left to return to
our offices. Little did any of us
know the drama and the trauma that was still unfolding.
As
I left the meeting I caught up with colleagues who were hurrying to leave and I
asked why they were going. They mentioned
that the crashes at the World Trade Center appeared intentional and perhaps an
attack. The news said that
authorities did not know if this was limited just to Manhattan or if other
cities were also being targeted, particularly Washington, DC. I asked if they really thought they
would be able to get anywhere on the roads if there was some question about DC
being attacked too. I went to our moot courtroom to turn on the large-screen
television there.
The
entire office was out in the halls talking, surfing the Internet on their
computers, or on their way to watch the TVs in our suite. Some folks were preparing to depart for
home or were already on their way out the door. I decided the roads would be
chaos and that if there was an attack involving sites in DC, then emergency and
police vehicles would need the roadways as clear as possible. Besides, my sons were 15 and 17 years
old and in school 50 miles west of DC.
My wife was about 30 miles west of DC where she was employed as a
Special Ed teacher and I was sure she would not be going anywhere due to the
responsibility she had for students – many of whom had working parents who
could not pick them up at school even if they wanted to. There was little I could do for my family and I felt they were completely safe at the moment. I decided to stay on The
Yard until the true status of events and conditions became more clear.
Once
the TV in the moot courtroom was turned on, a truly unbelievable scene was
revealed. The twin towers of the
World Trade Center were in flames with gaping holes and black smoke pouring out
of them. Debris (and maybe some
bodies?) could be seen falling out of the buildings. The street scenes of the panic and running had both an
unreal feel to it and, it has to be said, a somewhat familiar look after all
the disaster movies that had been so popular over the years. One had to constantly remind oneself
that what was being shown on TV was real and was actually happening at that
very moment in New York. The mood
of the office was one of somber shock mixed with feelings of complete
helplessness as we became witnesses to horrors we could only watch from afar in
real time.
And
then it got even worse!
Not long after we began watching TVs and checking news reports on radio
and the Internet, we entered a period of about a half hour where events seemed
to truly tumble out of control and the media had problems keeping up with
reports of mounting disasters. The
media reported on President Bush’s whereabouts – he was in Sarasota, Florida
visiting Emma Booker Elementary School when the attacks happened. We got reports that for the first time
in history all air traffic in the country had been ordered halted. New York, which was still thought to be
the only location of actual attack, closed all tunnels and bridges in and out
of the city. And then at about
quarter to 10:00 we heard the first report that a plane had just crashed into
the Pentagon, which was less than five miles away from where we were sitting at
The Yard!
The TV reporting was in what could best be described as a controlled
panic trying to confirm the reports flooding in before airing them, but events
were clearly spinning out of control.
Not long after this someone came around saying fires were being reported
on the Mall in DC and that martial law was being imposed! [This
proved to be utterly untrue.]
We heard that the White House and the Capitol were being evacuated. There was a report of a car bomb outside the State Department in the Foggy Bottom area of the city. [Also untrue.] People in the office tried
unsuccessfully to raise folks in various Navy and Marine Corps offices over at the
Pentagon. Cell phones began to be
jammed by the overload of calls and news reports asked people to try to limit
calls on cell and land lines. The
Navy Yard was secured and no one was allowed in or out. People were lined up for blocks inside the brick wall-enclosed Navy Yard sitting in their cars with nowhere to go. Some of our folks returned to the
office. [It was revealed later to an
emergency preparations committee I sat on at the Navy Yard, that people
employed on The Yard who did not have cars or who walked or took public
transportation to work, had gone down to the river when they were refused exit
at the gates. By the river there
was a section of cyclone fencing that ran the last few yards of the Navy Yard
border and out into the shallows of the Anacostia River. A crowd of people pushed over a section
of fence in their desperation to get off the Yard and left on foot.]
And then, just before 10:00, we watched in paralyzed disbelief as the
south tower of the World Trade Center collapsed upon itself while the whole
world watched live. The
billowing smoke and debris flew out from the site and down the streets creating
a real panic in those on the ground and even in the voices of the news
commentators. Within minutes
the scene took on a post-apocalyptic look with everything and everyone covered
in a grey/white powder of destruction.
It looked like what I imagined the outskirts of a city hit by a nuclear
blast would look like. People were
running for their lives, disoriented, panicked, shocked and choking for lack of
breathable air and water. We could
only stare in silence.
About this time I finally remembered that my sister was still working
in New York City even though she lived in New Hope, PA. She worked for the Alan Guttmacher
Institute, a think tank devoted to advancement of sexual and reproductive
health in the U.S. through research, policy analysis and public education. She commuted to NYC by train, but I was
not exactly sure of her schedule or precisely what her route was to get there,
but I was pretty sure she went through the subway station at the World Trade
Center at some point in her commute.
I began to worry about her, but was not able to call her or other family
to inquire about her. [As it turned out she was ill that day and
had not gone in to work.]
Just before 10:30 as many of us stood in the moot courtroom watching
the aftermath of the collapse of the south tower spreading across the
big-screen TV, the north tower fell in on itself and collapsed in a second
billowing rush of smoke and debris.
It was over in 10 seconds of live horror.
But the terror was not over yet!
About 15 or 20 minutes after the second tower came down, we heard news
about another airliner crashing somewhere in Pennsylvania. The airliner had left Newark, NJ bound
for San Francisco, but when it reversed course somewhere over Pennsylvania, it
was speculated that the plane was on its way to Washington, DC – possibly
targeting the White House. We
listened and watched not believing this was all actually happening on such a
beautifully clear September day.
And then it was driven home for every one of us when we learned a mass
evacuation of Washington was ordered somewhere around quarter to 11:00.
Not too long after we heard about the airliner crash in a field in
Pennsylvania, the gates to the Navy Yard were reopened so that people could
leave. By 3:00 PM almost everyone
in our office of about 40 people was gone. I assumed the traffic jams were going to be monumental and
so I decided to stay later than my usual departure of anywhere from 3:30 to
4:00 PM. I left the office a
little before 5:00 PM that day as I recall. I closed and locked the suite door after making the rounds
of all the offices. I think I was
the last to leave, but I am not positive because people could have been in
restrooms outside the suite or in an associated office suite down the hall.
When I went outside to walk the hundred yards or less to my car, the
weather was sunny and fairly warm, but still felt crisp due to the low
humidity. There were no other
people in sight and my car was the only one on Kidder Breeze, the block of parking
spaces opposite Leutze Park. In
the distance I could hear the occasional wail of an emergency siren. As I drove to the exit gate I routinely
used, there was a guard on duty, but no evidence of anyone else on foot or in a
vehicle. I left The Yard, turned left
onto M Street -- and did not see another car anywhere. I decided to take a route across the
city to the Potomac River and the 14th Street Bridge that I did not
take very often because I expected the Southeast-Southwest Expressway leading
onto the bridge to still be heavy with traffic and I wanted to get as close to
the bridge as I could without getting caught in a traffic jam.
On this day, I decided to abandon my usual route to the 14th
Street bridge into Virginia and chose instead to run the length of M Street
going west until it became Maine Ave. near the Arena Stage and ran past the
fish market on the left just before the Expressway overpass. Driving under the overpass and taking a
left just before the Federal Communication Commission building, I could
reconnect to Maine Ave. west and take the jug handle exit that passed under the
Engraving & Printing Bureau building feeding me right onto 14th
Street SW and the bridge across the Potomac.
It turned out to be an eerie drive because I saw almost no other
vehicles on the road and very few pedestrians. It was like a science fiction movie . . . a city virtually abandoned. Not only were there no traffic jams, I
seemed to have the roads entirely to myself. I drove steadily, but slowly, not knowing what I might
eventually come across. I tried
listening to NPR on the radio, but I could not concentrate on the words and
flood of news, so it became mere background noise to the otherwise quiet drive
across the city to the bridge.
As soon as I came up the
dip of 14th Street near the Jefferson Memorial and up onto the
bridge I saw jet-black smoke still billowing out and floating above where the
Pentagon was located on the other side of the bridge. There were no other vehicles on the bridge and I felt
disoriented. I suddenly realized I
drove almost the entire length of the bridge just looking at the black smoke
above the Pentagon and did not attend to whether any other cars or trucks were
around me. I wondered if I would
even be able to exit onto Route 110 since it passed immediately beside the
Pentagon, albeit on the side opposite the impact.
The exit onto Route 110 was completely open and still not another car
in sight. I slowed and hesitated
until I could see down the exit ramp to make sure it was not closed below. I expected to see a police car blocking
the merge onto Route 110, but it was empty and no vehicles were to be
seen. I exited slowly and merged
onto 110 to begin passing behind the Pentagon.
The light brown sandstone of the four-story Pentagon loomed to my left
and above it the black smoke still billowed upward looking inky and
sinister. I lowered the
window. I could smell nothing
unusual and could hear no sirens or traffic noise or anything else when I
lowered the radio to silence. I
watched the black smoke as long as I could as I passed the Pentagon and then
looked in my rearview mirror as I approached Rosslyn and had a different angle
back at the Pentagon. I never had
a view of the impact side, but in the rearview I was able to see what looked
like rooster tails of white occasionally appear against the black. I assumed they were still directing
water into the smoldering building.
[I later learned that in one of
those quirks of history, the finalized contracts for construction of the
Pentagon and the groundbreaking for the building took place on September 11,
1941 – exactly 60 years to the day before the terrorist attack of that
morning!]
As the view of the Pentagon faded from my rearview mirror, I was driving
slowly by Arlington National Cemetery and then the Iwo Jima Memorial just out
of view on my left. I knew the
world had changed and as I merged onto to Route 66 and the highways that would
take me home, I thought our country was surely headed for war somewhere. I spent the rest of my trip thinking
about my teenage sons and what this could possibly mean for them.
* * * * *
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Copyright 2014, John D. Tew
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