Eyewitness to 9/11 Pentagon attack - Adrian Daily Telegram
(Editor's note: The following story originally ran in the Sept. 14, 2001, edition of The Heber Springs (Ark.) Sun-Times.)
It was to be a typical week in D.C. Arriving at Reagan National Airport at 3 p.m. Monday, I hoped to check into the nearby Pentagon Double Tree Hotel and find a neighborhood restaurant for a solitary dinner. A call home to Little Rock, indicated that our scheduled home repairs were progressing well. When told about my rather mundane evening plans, my wife's response was "It's getting to be old hat going to D.C.," and she was right.
Representing a couple dozen clients in my government relations business, I end up at the Capitol every other month and have come to know the neighborhoods, hotels, metro and restaurants about as well as anyone. The idea of staying on the south side of the Potomac River, a half mile from the Pentagon was not very appealing, as the good spots are a dozen blocks away. Further, to get to the Capitol Mall for my traditional D.C. morning jog would require a three block hike to the Pentagon metro station and a ten minute metro ride under the River to the Archives station on the north edge of the Mall, dead center between the Capitol and the Washington Monument. The weather forecast looked fine for the morning with predictions of blue skies temperatures in the mid-60s. It would be a light work day, only one meeting mid-afternoon, and I'd have plenty of time for that jog.
Tuesday morning, I'm up at 6 a.m., do a little computer work, and down to breakfast by 8:30, planning to leave from the lobby for the Pentagon metro station from there. With breakfast complete and camera in hand I headed to the west exit of the hotel, but decided to go back to my room on the ninth floor, check for messages and grab a handful of disks for my digital camera. Restocked and ready to go, a cell phone call from a friend en route from Little Rock to Lonoke first alerted me to the radio announcements of the unfolding disaster. Two planes crash into the Trade Center in New York and reportedly an explosion at the Pentagon in D.C. That 9:40 a.m. call was the last cell phone call I received or could get out for the next three hours.
Like most of us, I thought it was "bad information," after all, my room window looked out toward the Pentagon, although the twin hotel tower blocked a direct view. With a quick check out the window, I assured the caller that nothing was amiss in D.C. There were no sirens, explosions or unusual activity. But, within a minute a column of thick black smoke appeared over the adjacent tower in the direction of the Pentagon. There were multiple sirens and scattered groups running toward the smoke.
Within five minutes I'm on the street following the others. The smoke is thick, black and surrounds the hotel, smelling of burnt rubber and material. It was a quick walk north over the raised interstate where traffic is already banned and down toward the Pentagon's southern parking lot. For those who have never flown over the building, it is difficult to describe its immense size. It is the largest office building in the country, with nearly 24,000 staff working there. During my last D.C. visit, there was excited talk about the major renovations under way at the building, and the fact that the Pentagon metro stop would soon be relocated away from the front of the complex to improve security.
But now, the smoke is billowing out of the west side and the damage is obvious from police perimeter at the out edge of the parking lot. Thousands of military officers in all types of uniforms had spilled out of the wrecked building and were peering toward the broken building. Remarkably, there was no panic, perhaps because of the large military presence in the crowd. Talk was subdued and almost casual. Many had left their offices with their brief cases, as though they were leaving work at the end of a work day.
In about 15 minutes, there was a loud exploding noise, but no visible sign that it was from the Pentagon itself. Five minutes later, the Secret Service and city police began running toward the massed crowd screaming orders to move back toward the Crystal City area as quickly as possible as another airplane is 40 miles out and is not responding to radio messages. The streets by then were packed with pedestrians streaming back away from the Pentagon, cars in gridlock, ladder trucks and ambulances. There were a few women crying, but mostly the crowd was calm, obeying directions and there were no signs of injuries. Within ten minutes, I arrived back at the hotel just as a flight of fighters screamed by overhead, responding to the threat of a second plane.
As the day wore on, the hotel lobby filled with guests and those stranded from the Pentagon complex. Thousands were displaced as entire areas of town were evacuated and parking garages cordoned off. A large screen television and dozens of chairs drew a large crowd in the center of the hotel lobby.
By 2 p.m., traffic was virtually nonexistent and from my hotel window I could see only a couple of people on the streets below. I stayed busy trying to get calls and emails out from my room. A call from a business associate in Rosslyn, just west of the Pentagon, indicated that some in his office had actually seen the plane slam into the Pentagon and they were evacuating the Arlington area. A call from Congressman Mike Ross of Arkansas' 4th Congressional District, encouraged me to find a way across the Potomac to share his apartment three blocks from the Capitol. Ross and I had been colleagues in the Arkansas legislature from 1991-94. All car traffic had been closed across the river and the metro line nearest the Pentagon was closed, I took a chance that a longer alternate route would still be operating.
At 4:15 p.m., I found myself with luggage in tow at the Crystal City metro station, along with 20 others headed into the heart of D.C. The metro is usually packed at rush hour, but few of the eleven stations on the trip into downtown had more than a dozen or so people waiting. Still, there was no panic. Most people seemed to be calculating their best way home, or out of town. Most did what metro riders do best, minded their own business, read, dozed or listened to headphones.
Union Station, my final stop, was closed and the entire area resembled a ghost town. A dozen police, and the always present D.C.'s homeless, and car traffic at about five percent of normal volume. The eight block walk to Congressman Ross' apartment seemed odd in that you could look down an entire street and see maybe two or three other people.
The Congressman has been busy all day helping to get his staff safely out of the immediate danger zone, rescheduling his 24 meetings of the day and answering calls from constituents, media and friends and family from his home town of Prescott. The Cannon House Office Building had been evacuated within minutes of the Pentagon attack and Ross was trying to get as much information as possible from back home and the Congressional leadership. The Congressman remembered that the last time we had shared an apartment was the opening day of Desert Storm.
At 7 p.m., we went to the Capitol for the bi-partisan Congressional news conference led by Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert and Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle. Congressman Ross, his staff and I made it through four layers of security and joined two hundred Congressman, flanked by fifty secret service agents and police, with a lone jet fighter circling overhead. It was reassuring to see that group standing there shoulder to shoulder, partisan battles set aside for once.
Afterward, we drove to dinner. Many streets around the mall were cordoned off, and both police and military were present at most intersections. Although few people were out, there was no sense of panic. Life went on. People were jogging, riding bikes, walking their dogs, and sitting in the parks. D.C. is a resilient city that's accustomed to change. And Americans are a resilient people.
11 Sep, 2011--
Source: http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNFcj5LMtjQMMK5DGug5wG2bYP1Jag&url=http://www.lenconnect.com/sept11/x1413022244/Eyewitness-to-9-11-Pentagon-attack
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