This was truly one of the worst days of my life.
I live and work in the metro DC area. In September 2001, I actually worked IN the city, in Dupont Circle.
That particular morning, I was running pretty late for work. It was a friend of mine's birthday, and I remember that I spent a lot of time that morning putting together a package to mail to him with his birthday gifts inside. It took more time than I anticipated. To keep myself from being distracted, I actually did NOT have the morning news on that day, because otherwise, I'd be tempted to watch the news, rather than pack my friend's gifts.
Since I was running late, I decided that instead of taking the metro (subway) into the city like I normally did, I'd take a taxicab which, while vastly more expensive, was much faster, usually.
So I'm in my own little world that morning, reading through some papers for work, while being driven by the taxicab driver. It didn't even register on me that he was uncharacteristically silent (most cab drivers I'd hired tended to be pretty chatty). At one point, about halfway into the trip (I live about 7 miles outside the city), he turns to me and asks me what I thought about all the craziness going on in New York. I didn't have a CLUE what he was talking about, and made a joke like, "You mean something crazier than normal is going on?". That's when he began to fill me in on what he'd been listening to on the radio. He turned it up, so that I could hear it. I sat there in shock as I listened about the WTC towers being struck. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I immediately thought of friends and loved ones that lived in or near NYC, and wondered if any of them would've been in the Financial district that early in the day.
Now, any of you that live in cities that are near airports, you know that it's fairly customary to see planes flying fairly low as they make their approach or departure to/from the airport. DC is no exception; National Airport is VERY close to the city, and planes can be seen flying in and out of there all day long.
As the cabbie and I were talking, and listening to the radio about what was happening in NYC, we made our way closer and closer to the city. DC traffic is famously shitty, and this morning was no exception. But, at least, we had just made our turn onto Washington Blvd, off of I-395N, which takes you right by the Pentagon. I was relieved to finally make that exit, because traffic typically gets better, once you're off the interstate.
It was right about this time when a very loud and low rumble could be heard from our left (the west). As we crested a rise as part of the exit ramp, we could see very clearly a jetliner (American Airlines flight 77) bearing down on the Pentagon. It was coming in very fast, and very low. Technically, at that instant, there really wasn't a way to extrapolate the trajectory of the plane to see WHAT/WHERE it would land, I just knew with a fair degree of certainty that it was going to crash land. The cab driver looks back at me with terror in his eyes, and doesn't even manage to get out all the words: "They don't usually come in THAT low, do...?" before the plane smashed headlong into the side of the Pentagon. It actually flew over the very road we were driving on, not even a half mile ahead of us... it was a miracle that it didn't hit any cars on Washington Blvd. As it was, it managed to hit a few lights that lined the road.
Instantly, the slow-moving traffic came to a standstill. People were getting out of their cars, screaming, running up the street in some cases, to get a better look at the scene. It was simply awful. When the plane struck, a HUGH red-orage fireball launched itself into the sky, followed immediately by thick black smoke clouds. As some of the smoke cleared, you could see that there was definitely an impact hole in the side of the building.
Initially, I was not one of the people to get out of their cars. I sat there in stunned silence, not fully comprehending what I'd just seen. I know a LOT of people that work in the Pentagon, either as military personnel, or as contractors/civilians, etc. My boyfriend (then and now) works/worked for a government agency that often briefed the military at the Pentagon. He, himself, did it quite often. All I could think of at that moment was, "Please don't let him be there today. Please don't let him be there today."
Eventually, I DID get out of the taxicab. I looked at the woman in the car next to me. She had tears streaming down her face. We looked at one another, as if to say, "Did that just happen??" It finally occurred to me to try reaching Rob (my BF) on my cellphone, but nobody's cellphones were working. I could see people all around me trying to call someone, to no avail. I tried my mom in Virginia... no connection. At some point, I realized that I was crying, too. I hadn't even noticed. I DID notice a strange smell, though... yes, it was the smoke... but I finally realized that I was also smelling jet fuel. The combination of sights, sounds and smells was almost too much to process.
It didn't take long before we began to hear sirens. Since traffic was pretty much at a standstill, all the emergency vehicles were trying to drive up the shoulder... which was difficult, because there were a lot of people congregated along the shoulder, as well as regular people trying to drive on it, to get a better look, or to get past the rest of traffic, or who knows what? I remember this one guy in a business suit yelling and screaming at people to get out of the way, so that the rescue vehicles could get by. That's when I realized that all I wanted to do at that moment was get back in the cab, and get the hell out of there.
Eventually, VA State Police arrived, and - to this day, I'm not sure how they did it - but they got EVERYONE who'd been driving north into the city, to turn around, and drive south. Tractor trailers, and all! Since we'd basically just gotten onto Washington Blvd, it wasn't too long before we were back on I-395, in the northbound lanes, but driving in the opposite direction. It was kind of scary, to see 10 lanes of traffic driving away from the city like that. I kept thinking of those apocolyptic movies, like Deep Impact, or Armageddon, where everyone is trying to escape the big disaster zone.
It was interesting to see how long it took news to travel. The taxi driver still had the radio on, and within 10 minutes, the radio announcer began talking about getting unconfirmed reports of an explosion at the Pentagon. And then that it was supposedly a plane. And then that it was reportedly another United flight (which it wasn't... the AA emblem was VERY visible). There were reports of a bomb at the State Department, and reports of another possible plane inbound to the city. We DID see and hear fighter jets making passes overhead, which actually scared the hell out of me, because everytime I heard it, I couldn't tell if it was a fighterjet, or another passengerjet bearing down on the city. I was only TOO happy to FINALLY make it back home, where the driver only charged me $20 (the meter had been running the whole time, and the fare was close to $40 at this point).
I somehow managed to work my legs to take me into my condo building, where I turned on the TV (CNN), where I now got to see a NEW horror: the collapse of the towers.
I FINALLY got my home phone to work... I'd been trying to call people for about 20 minutes, when I finally got through to my mom, who was hysterical. When she found out just how close I'd been, she almost lost it. She kept telling me to leave the city, and come to her house west of the city (by about 1.5 hours), and I kept trying to explain to her that I was lucky to make it the 7 miles back to MY house... they'd officially called an evacuation of the city, and now EVERYONE (not just the late morning commuters, like me) was trying to exit the city. Plus, I wasn't ready to leave, without finding out about my friends and loved ones at the Pentagon.
So I'd wind up sitting there for HOURS, watching news coverage that kept looping over and over and over of the 2nd plane hitting the WTC, and then the collapses. And the footage of the Pentagon, and of the United flight in PA. All this while fighterjets could be heard flying sorties overhead.
It was, in a word, terrifying. I'm not ashamed to say that I was scared as hell that day, because I kept waiting for something ELSE to happen. And in my mind's eye, I kept seeing the plane plow into the Pentagon, in slow motion. It would be MONTHS before I could get the image from my brain. And, I didn't fly for 3 years after that day. All I could think about were the lives lost, and how scared those people on the plane must've been, and how the people in the WTC towers and the Pentagon didn't have a clue what was about to happen to them.
How many of the Pentagon workers that I often sat next to on the metro had lost their lives that day? Was there anyone that I knew on the DC-originating flights? Were my friends in NYC ok? It would take a few days before I had all those answers. Thankfully, no one in my immediate circle of friends and loved ones lost their lives that day. I did have a few friends who knew someone who died that day, though... and that was just as difficult, consoling those who'd lost someone.
Like all the folks who've posted above me, I, too, will never forget that day, for as long as I live. I wish that I COULD. But, in some ways, it's probably good that I CAN'T.
