Like millions of Americans, i was already at work that fateful morning. It was a sunny, beautiful day in Georgetown, and had just enjoyed a dark roast coffee on my porch overlooking the serene courtyard. It was just like any other day. Seated back at my desk right before 9am eastern time, i was, per usual, watching my three cable TV monitors when the first report came in about the first plane.
Looking at the live NBC video, and the initial speculation that a ‘small plane’ had hit the first tower, my first reaction was that the large indentation on the building was much larger than a small commercial aircraft. A commercial aviation buff, i noticed the wingspan of the aircraft was at least half the size of the building width. Small aircraft? Something did not seem right.
The NBC feed resumed regular programming — but then when the second plane hit minutes later, it was full tilt bedlam on the cable news stations, and i sat riveted in my chair watching history unfold for the next hour.
Just a while later, an unusual, ominous thud echoed up the Potomac and i walked outside on my porch to see what was up.
Five minutes later, dark smoke from the National Airport area — down river from Georgetown — filled the sky, just as it was now being reported a plane had hit the Pentagon. I began receiving calls from loved ones asking if I was OK, and began making some of my own calls to the NYC area, which were unable to be completed.
I left my office to walk down to the M Street Starbucks and the fear in people’s faces was palpable. I, too, was becoming uneasy as fighter jets were screaming overhead, and the sounds of helicopters permeated the normally serene morning air.
Back at my office, I watched the towers fall — one of which I’d just visited a month or two ago to have a drink at Windows of the World. I thought of that large elevator I’d gone up on to get to the top of the tower, and the horror that must have ensued as building tenants attempted to flea the building. My emotions got the better of me, and had to lay down on my office couch as i was feeling weak and faint.
By about noon, the time I usually go running, I decided to head down to the Memorial Bridge for a clear look down the river towards the Pentagon. When I arrived, traffic had stopped, people were out of their cars, and a small crowd — in stark silence — stood on the south side of the bridge as smoke billowed up the river from the blast area.
I joined the crowd, climbed up on the massive stonework to get a better view, and stared down river. No one talked, no one said a thing. There was nothing to say. Everyone, by then, knew thousands of their countrymen had been killed. We were all there, standing on Memorial Bridge, frozen in time and frozen in thought as the acrid smoke from the burning Pentagon dissipated into the 9/11 morning sunshine.