Fifth anniversary of 9/11

On September 11 five years ago, I was working four or five blocks from the White House. My department was preparing for a staff presentation, so we were all in early. Most of us were introverts, and we were absolutely dreading the day ahead.

Around 8:50 a.m., just minutes after it had happened, my boss came into my office and said a plane had hit the World Trade Center. Like almost everyone else who didn’t actually see it, I thought she meant a Cessna had lost control. When the e-mail went around the office that another plane had slammed into the WTC, we knew it wasn't just a small-scale tragedy, a one-time accident. We stayed glued to our computers looking for information, still confused about what was happening but with a growing awareness that our lives had changed irrevocably.

Todd called me around 9:45 a.m. to say a plane had crashed into the Pentagon. He had heard about it from a friend whose wife worked there. Now there was no denying the enormity of the situation. I started frantically calling my sister’s office number, because she worked about a block from the White House. I didn’t know what was going to happen, but it looked like all of downtown D.C. was locking down. Her line just rang and rang; I was increasingly panicked, because she was never late for work, EVER, and why wasn't the voice mail picking up? I was afraid she was going to be stuck in the building across from the White House, and by that point we had already heard that there was another plane that wasn’t communicating with ground control and that it was heading for D.C. We had also heard rumors that there was a bomb in the Capitol building. There was city-wide hysteria.

I finally thought to call her at home, and woke her up. She had a new girlfriend in from out of town, and they had overslept. When I heard her voice, I almost vomited from relief. Heather, completely disoriented and sleep-deprived, mumbled something like, "Shit, I overslept! I’ve got to get to work!" I told her to turn on the TV, that work was most certainly cancelled, and that I’d call her when I got home. Then I practically ran out of the office.

Unlike most of my coworkers, and the majority of people who work in DC, I lived within walking distance of my job. People who couldn’t walk home ended up being stuck for six or more hours while trying to leave the city. Some people had to walk to the border of DC and be picked up there. Some people ended up staying with friends or acquaintances, or camping out at work. We fared better than our friends in NYC.

Walking home, I passed people bewilderedly staggering outside and looking at the skies. Every time a plane passed overhead, we collectively cringed. People were crying, talking loudly and angrily on cell phones, and rushing about. When I got home at 10:15 a.m., I ran into two neighbors. One was high; he had been on the roof watching the smoke from the Pentagon until he was thoroughly depressed, and had come inside to self-medicate. The other one, an obese man who had been dieting religiously for a year, was going out for barbecue, hamburgers, and donuts. Myself, I got to my apartment, closed the door behind me, turned on the TV, and started drinking the good bourbon and crying. I didn't stop for about a week.