Five years ago today…
Five years ago today I was fresh out of college and reporting to my first job on Capitol Hill. Like all Hill offices ramping up for a fall session, this Dirksen Senate office was buzzing when I arrived. Constituents were waiting in the waiting room, staffers were breezing through the front office and the televisions were on.
I told the receptionist that I was here for my first day of work but she seemed a little bit preoccupied with the TV that was over my right shoulder. I turned around to see what she was looking at.
Bizarre, some sort of plane had accidently crashed into one of the World Trade Towers.
She then informed someone via phone that I was here and I was told to wait a few minutes on the couch. Ten minutes passed and the news started to change. Whispers of an intentional plane crash began…terrorism?
The office grew more tense, and then the second plane hit. Constituents and others waiting for meetings began to leave.
I still didn’t really know anybody — certainly nobody knew me — but I found myself pulled into an all staff meeting in which we were assured everything would be ok. Yes there were rumors of a fire on the mall, a bomb truck near the State Department etc .etc.
But things would be ok.
Almost as soon as that meeting had ended, an official word came from Capitol Police: Evacuate.
And so we did.
I grabbed the nearest staffer and told him my name and that like it or not, I was following him — The metro was down and I had no way of getting out of town and did not know my way around DC yet. He and others were in similar situations — trapped in DC — so we all went to one staffers home here on the Hill. There we sat and watched the tragic news reports all day.
I remember trying to call my fiance’ in Massachusetts and my family in Pittsburgh for quite some time, but all the phone lines were down. There was nothing to do but sit and wait…sit and absorb the enormity of the moment as the helicopters hovered overhead and the sirens wailed. I remember feeling helpless. All the calamity surrounding us with the fear of more on the way and we were stuck watching the streets of New York devolve into hell on earth on our TV — it was a feeling I had never felt before.
This morning on Capitol Hill is, of course, much different. Unlike that day it is not clear and blue and gorgeous. It is overcast, grey, windy, sprinkly and a little bit chilly. The flags, all at half mast, are whipping in the wind — extended so that you can see them full on unfurled. It is a fitting day to remember that awful one five years ago. Quiet, cold, somber…not all together cheery in any way.