Fourteen Years Later

We still vividly remember 9/11.  We had a normal 30-40 minute drive into work, dropping off Renee at her office, before going into my underground parking garage.  Later that morning, a young man who worked for me came into my Alexandria office, saying a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center in New York.  I went online, looking for more info.  Then, we gathered in the conference room to watch the television, just in time to see the first tower collapse into a mushroom of ghostly white dust. 

Being close to Reagan National airport, we noticed we couldn’t hear the normal plane traffic and soon learned why.  Then, we heard the Pentagon had been hit.  I could see the Pentagon from my office window, but was not watching when the plane hit.  Still, I watched the flames and the smoke pouring out of it.  I could see the smoke blowing toward Renee’s office, which filled with smoke.  (To this day, she still wonders about breathing dead bodies into her lungs.  120 people had died.)  Our downtown office was at 15th and New York, with a view of the White House.  Our co-workers there told us people were not merely evacuating but were running out of the White House.  There was a report the Federal Reserve Bank on Constitution Avenue had been struck by a car bomb, which turned out to be untrue, but nobody knew it was untrue at the time.  I gathered my staff around me, saying that America was forever changed, but we would survive just fine.  I ordered pizzas for everybody to eat, so we could watch the TV coverage.  After lunch, I sent them home.

The roads got crowded quickly.  I could see the street below, where people were even driving on the sidewalks to escape faster.  Renee had a doctor's appointment that afternoon, but the doctor called to cancel it, as he was leaving town.  I started to leave the office myself, when the “big cheese” decided to hold a manager’s meeting in my office to discuss the impact on the bank’s business.  I thought this was in bad taste at the time.  Finally, standing up to leave the office, my phone rang.  Quickly, I grabbed it.  It was my daughter in Texas, who had been trying for hours to get through.  She just wanted to know I was okay.  After picking up Renee, it took us 3 ½ hours to drive home.  It was incredible!  Washington was evacuating itself, without being told to do so.  

There was little conversation during those long hours on the road, as we searched different radio stations for news.  Some estimates of the body count were up to 30,000.  Mere words failed us.

My, how the world has changed since then . . .