We didn't have TV's in our office at the FCC and it was before the age of streaming news. We had just bought a house in southern Maryland for my mom. She hadn't moved in yet. I heard about the first plane crash into the towers and thought it was a mistake. An accident. Then my desk phone rang. It was my mom.
"Go home! Go home now!" What? I metroed in, as usual. I'd have to metro home. The office was buzzing with news of the first plane crashing into the World Trade Center, but at that point, we thought it was an accident, not intentional. "That's New York," I replied, "Nothing is happening here." She told me about the second plane and that one had also crashed into the Pentagon. WHAT?!
I frantically tried to pull up CNN on my computer, but the site wasn't responding. My boss had a TV in his office, and most of our group gathered around it, but I didn't want to leave my phone. I tried calling my husband, but couldn't get through. I left a voicemail. By then we knew it was a terrorist attack. Despite my mom's fears, I was pretty confident the FCC wouldn't be a target, but the government evacuated DC and told us to go home.
A coworker gave me a ride home as I wasn't about to get on the Metro with all the rumors swirling around. We crept through DC - seeing smoke rising from the Pentagon across the river. People were out walking across bridges. The whole sight was surreal. I kept trying to reach my husband, who I thought had said he'd be at a satellite office but actually was in the Pentagon when the plane hit.
