REMEMBERING SEPTEMBER 11, 2001

As I sit at my computer this morning, I remember 10 years ago like it was yesterday. I worked at the EPA Headquarters at the Ronald Reagan building that is two blocks from the White House. I held a morning staff meeting with my team in one of the more secluded conference rooms in the building. After it convened, I returned to my office and checked my voicemail as I routinely did. There was a message from my son that said, “Mom, you have to get out of your building right away. There is an airplane heading toward the White House and it is going to crash there. The two World Trade Centers in New York have already had airplanes flown into them. Please go home NOW!”
I was dumbfounded and called him back at his work and he re-iterated that I needed to get out of that building now and go home. I collected my things and saw that many other of my co-workers were in process of leaving or had already left.
I walked down Pennsylvania Avenue toward the Archives Metro Station. Many people were coming up the escalators saying the Yellow Line trains weren’t running, but one could catch a Blue Line Train to Rosslyn where Metro was providing buses to transport people to other Yellow Line Stations. The reason the Yellow Line Subway was closed was because an airplane had crashed into the Pentagon and no Subway was getting through.
After going to Metro Center and catching a Blue Line train into Virginia, I exited the Rosslyn Metro station where there were many buses waiting to transport passengers. The atmosphere was surreal. Most of us didn’t have a clue what had happened but that we needed to go home as fast as we could. What normally took 10 minutes to ride by car from Rosslyn to Pentagon City took 95 minutes on the bus. Traffic was everywhere, people were walking and riding their bikes exiting the city as fast, but peacefully, as they could. As I exited the bus at Pentagon City, I could smell the burning aviation fuel from the crash at the Pentagon. I could see the smoke but wouldn’t let myself look in the direction of the Pentagon.
I arrived home 3 ½ hours after I left my office. I watched, in horror, the events of the morning on television. Like the rest of America, I was stunned at what these terrorists were able to accomplish.
I later learned that my step-daughter, who worked at the World Trade Center, was running a little late that morning and was able to stay on the train she took in from Long Island and return home before New York City shut down the bridges and subway. She lost many friends and colleagues that day. I also learned that a former colleague perished in the Pentagon. Another friend survived the crash at the Pentagon because she had stepped away from her desk to retrieve a Fax from another location. She has suffered with many health problems since then.
Yes, I remember it like it was yesterday. . . . .