Posted by
Green Faerie on Monday, September 11, 2006 1:32:58 PM
I used to live in the Washington, D.C. area and on the morning of September 11, 2001 I arrived at work in Rosslyn, VA which is just across the river from D.C. and about 3-4 miles from the Pentagon. It was a very clear day, with deep blue cloudless skies. There was nothing unusual about the day except for my feeling a bit nervous and irritable for a few days beforehand. But I thought nothing of it. I had just gotten my cup of tea and was looking at TheForce.Net's article about all of the stuff on the upcoming Phantom Menace DVD when a co-worker came up to the area where I was sitting and said, "A plane crashed into the World Trade Center." He'd just heard it on the radio. My impression was of a small Cessna or something making a wrong turn into the building. I tried to get on various news site pages online to get more information but either I couldn't get on them due to heavy traffic or the details were sketchy.
A woman sitting across from me was listening to the breaking reports on her radio. She said that it wasn't a little plane, it was a jet liner, a 757. My jaw dropped. I knew there would be a massive loss of life with a crash of that magnitude. But I believed it was an accident. Until another jet liner hit the other tower a short time later.
By this time everyone in the office with a radio was listening to the news accounts of the horrors in New York. Then we heard sirens outside (as it turned out, some were fire trucks heading for the nearby Gannett building). A few moments later we found out a jet liner crashed into the Pentagon. I went outside to look and all I could see was billowing black smoke coming from the direction of the Pentagon. Before long F-15s from the District National Guard were in the air guarding the skies.
I went back inside to learn one tower had collapsed. I continued to listen to the radio account of people jumping out of the only standing tower as well as news about the crash at the Pentagon. By this time I was starting to get worried that there were more surprise attacks in store and that the subway system I took to work was going to be shut down. When there were reports of a plane heading off-course toward D.C., one of our managers hastily called a meeting and told everyone they could go home. I called my mom at her job and told her to come pick me up at a nearby Marriott. The street in front of my building was also in front of the subway stop and I figured it would be mobbed. As I was getting ready to go, I heard about the second tower collapsing. I'll never forget as I was walking out the door, the receptionist had her radio set on an R&B station and there was a preacher on the air saying something like, "Lord heal this city! Lord heal this land!"
Walking over to the hotel was a surreal experience because it was so still and so quiet. There were people everywhere trying to get home but there wasn't a lot of noise. I got to the Marriott and by this time I'd learned the plane heading for D.C. had crashed in Pennsylvania. Worried tourists were trying to get cabs to the airport but I knew those folks weren't going anywhere. I just sat on a bench outside and waited, talking to people and watching crowds walking across the Key Bridge from D.C. into Rosslyn. The streets in D.C. were closed and part of the subway was closed.
I went inside once to use the restroom and I saw people in a ballroom that apparently came for a conference sitting around watching television instead. The bar was completely packed with people glued to the t.v. there.
If there was anything positive at all about that day was the amazing kindness by strangers. Several people offered to give me rides home, knowing the road and subway situation. They offered to go several miles out of their way. Given that my mom was enroute and it would be difficult now to reach her by cell phone (everyone was using their phones), I couldn't just take off with anyone. I didn't want to give her a heart attack if she shows up and there's no one there.
But I waited and waited. The bellhop's phone rings. He answers it, looks at me, and asks, "Are you (my name)?" Let me tell you that really freaked me out. "Yes," I said warily. The bellhop says, "Your mother is on the phone." My mom was calling from a restaurant some miles away, explaining that she called the front desk and gave them a description. It must have been a pretty good one because the front desk people recognized me through the front window and rang through to the bellhop. My mom could not drive into Rosslyn because the authorities had closed the roads going into that area. She told me she'd heard the subway had reopened. So I hiked on back to the station and took the train. It was real quiet on that trip back and nobody could look anyone else in the eye. I was nervous as heck that something would happen. I just wanted to get home, board it up, and cradle a shotgun in my lap.
I turned on the t.v. and just watched the carnage again and again. I was touched to see the outpouring of grief from around the world but infuriated to see some dancing in the streets. I was proud of the great heroism shown by the passengers of the downed plane in Pennsylvania. Phone calls came in from people I know in other states and other countries to see if I was okay. Of course I wasn't in the Pentagon or anything and neither were any family or friends. But the fear and uncertainty, the shock, the emotional rollercoaster of going from frightened to sad to outraged was at times overwhelming. For the first time I could truly empathize with the British back in the IRA's heyday or what Israelis have to endure all of the time. I got this horrible headache that wouldn't go away for three days and I had a hard time sleeping. Moody, irritable, you name it. That was me.
If that wasn't enough, D.C. got hit with the anthrax letters. I had to do some work downtown D.C. about a month later--right across the street from the U.S. Holocaust Museum!--just as all of that was happening. You could have sent me into a panic attack by leaving a pile of Sweet and Low on my desk. It was a very bizarre and terrifying time. For days after the attacks I found myself calling and e-mailing my friends more and listening to a lot old music I liked when I was younger. It was the only way I could ground myself.
Things settled back to something like normal over the subsequent months. I say that because once something happens to your community on that scale it never goes back to normal. Every time I flew out of Dulles airport I couldn't help but think of AA Flight 77. I became more nervous taking the subway than I had any time before Sept. 11. When those trains in Madrid were bombed back in March, I continued to take the subway but boy was I a quivering wreck inside. You cannot avoid the feeling at the back of your mind that simply living and working in the vicinity of the nation's capitol puts a big old target on your back. I admit today that I'm relieved I don't live there anymore. As far as I'm concerned anywhere in America is a potential target for terrorism but D.C. is at or near the top. Simple fact of life.
As for New York, I'd visited a few times since Sept. 11 (most recently in April) but I could not bring myself to go to Ground Zero. It's too unnerving for me. My last visit before the terror attacks was in December 2000 and I went again in July 2002. It was very, very odd to not see the World Trade Center's towers in the far distance, letting you know you were almost there. It was odd to see nothing towering above Chinatown and lower Manhattan the way the towers once did. It's creepy to think a building complex I'd visited in 1984 was simply no longer there.