To mark the 10th anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks, The Hill spent weeks talking to members who were in Washington and New York on that day to record their memories.
It was a day filled with confusion, gut-wrenching angst, and a call to action.
Rep. Pete King’s (R-N.Y.) first thought was that his wife might have been on one of the hijacked planes.
Former Rep. Brian Baird (D-Wash.) ran the halls of the Longworth House Office Building, telling his neighbors to flee after he saw the Pentagon erupt in a fireball from his window.
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) sprang to action, rounding up members of Congress in a pickup truck to ferry them to a safe location.
This is their story.
8:46 a.m. – American Airlines Flight 11 crashes into the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City.
King: My wife was supposed to have come down the night before. But there was a terrible rainstorm in New York, so she had to come down that morning from LaGuardia. My daughter called me on my cell phone. Her husband, who worked directly north of the World Trade Center, said he had seen the plane hit the World Trade Center. And my daughter’s immediate thought was that it could have been my wife’s plane.
Issa: I was in a Judiciary subcommittee hearing, and we were going back and forth between the TV in the back and the hearings that were going on. The first thing that came on was the story of a small private plane hitting the first tower. And I thought, “Hey, wait a second, this is something big.” But they weren’t reporting it that way. So the first recollection is really that sense of misinformation.
Baird: My staff came in and said, “Look at this, there’s a fire in one of the Trade Towers. They say a small plane hit it.” No one was sure what was going on.
Ron Bonjean (former press secretary to then-Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.): I was running a little bit late to work and I turned on the radio and I heard Peter Jennings. Whenever you hear an evening anchor on the morning broadcast on a Top 40 station, you know it’s pretty bad.
9:03 a.m. – United Airlines Flight 175 crashes into the South Tower of the World Trade Center.
Baird: When that second plane hit, I immediately gathered my staff together and said, “This is a terrorist attack and I think it’s very likely they will hit Washington, D.C., in some fashion.”
King: As I’m walking into the Capitol everybody was walking around drinking their coffee. The word hadn’t gotten to anyone yet. The overhead television was on as I walked in the door and I saw the plane hit the Trade Center. I thought it was a video replay of the first plane. When I walked into my office, I turned on the television and realized that was the second tower that was hit. I remember saying, “This is a terrorist attack; this is going to be a war.” My wife finally called me at 9:21 a.m. and said flights had been canceled and asked me what was going on. I said, “New York’s under attack.”
Rep. José Serrano (D-N.Y.) was in New York City: As a I drove south on the Bruckner Expressway going into the Bronx, I actually could see, way off in the city, the smoke. It was unlike anything I had seen before.
9:37 a.m. - American Airlines Flight 77 crashes into the Pentagon.
Bonjean: I ran up the stairs in the Capitol to the office and put my backpack down and walked into [Lott’s] office. He had the TV on and was sitting there starting to draft a statement and I came in to help him, when Sen. Lott’s assistant said, “Look out the window onto the Mall, there’s smoke out there.” We both walked over to the window and could see half the sky on the left-hand side was filled with smoke. Sen. Lott said: “I think the Pentagon’s just been hit. Get everyone out of here right now.”
Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.): At the time, the press was reporting that a helicopter had crashed at the Pentagon. But I could look out of my window [in the Rayburn House Office Building] and see all of the Pentagon burning and huge flames leaping up. I knew it wasn’t a helicopter and that it was some type of attack. So I said to my office, “Let’s leave.” Even before they evacuated, my instinct was to get my staff out of the building.
Idaho Gov. (and former Rep.) C.L. “Butch” Otter (R), who was holding a press conference outside the Capitol: We heard the explosion and saw the plume of black smoke as we could see over the top of the city toward the Pentagon. And about that time, all manner of panic turned that Capitol Hill into a beehive.
Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-Mont.): When we first got out into the streets, no one really knew what was going on. We heard the explosion at the Pentagon, and it echoed around quite a bit, so it sounded like a bunch of explosions. We all had beepers on our belts for when we had to vote or needed information, but when the Capitol was evacuated, the person responsible for sending information through those beepers was also evacuated. So there wasn’t any way to get information out.
Baird held an office on the seventh-floor of the Longworth Building that provided a view of the Pentagon: One of my staff members screamed and said, “Something just blew up.” I ran to the window and I’ll never forget, it was this angry fireball of flame and smoke.
I had a real conundrum at that point. We weren’t in any imminent threat, but we just saw what looked like the Pentagon blowing up. So I made a decision to let people know that I think it’s advisable to get out of this building because I think we’re a prime target.
My other thought was that it’s roughly 9:30 in the morning and there would be a lot of young staffers there whose bosses aren’t yet in and we’ve seen something that as far as I can guess probably nobody on the Capitol complex knows, that we’re now under attack.
We literally ran from floor to floor to floor saying, “We just saw an explosion. We think it’s the Pentagon. I would recommend you to evacuate.” My female staff meanwhile, many wearing heels and whatnot, were already going out of the building. And the Capitol Police said, “Where are you going?” And my staff said, “Buildings are blowing up.” And they said, “We don’t have any notice of that.” And my staff said, “We saw it.” And that, to some extent, initiated the evacuation of Longworth.
Issa: My wife was in town and she had the car, but I was able to get through to my chief of staff, who was already out of the building, but his car keys were sitting there. So I went down and got his truck. Most people were milling around the streets outside kind of aimlessly, like a fire alarm, rather than a terrorist attack. So I realized that getting some of the other members and finding a rally point seemed to make sense.
Otter: When I hit the street I was with another congressman, Denny Rehberg. We were standing on the corner and I tracked down a U.S. Marshal who was trying to direct traffic. I said, “What do you know about Congress members supposed to go over to the safe houses?” He radioed in and said, “Yeah, you guys are supposed to go to this certain place.” And then Darrell pulled over to the curb and said, “Get in, guys, we’re supposed to go here.”
Rehberg: Once we knew where to go, Darrell said he had a pickup truck. There wasn’t room in the cab for everyone. Me and Butch grew up on ranches out West, so riding in the back of a truck is second nature, and that’s what we did.
Issa: We got a truck full of members and got over to the Capitol Hill police station over on the Senate side.
Former Senate Chaplain Lloyd Ogilvie: Hundreds of members of Congress, staff and media people were milling about outside with fear and anxiety written on their faces. Suddenly, there was a newsman standing beside me with a bullhorn in his hand. “Chaplain, these people are frightened and need you to pray for them.” The crowd near me gathered around. I took the bullhorn and poured out a prayer from the deepest recesses of my heart for those who had been victims of the attacks.
10:03 a.m. – United Airlines Flight 93 crashes in Shanksville, Pa. The plane was thought to be headed toward the Capitol or White House.
Baird: After we went room to room evacuating people, as we know, there was that fourth plane coming, so I don’t regret the decision. We went to my house, which is on Fifth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue. When we got inside, there was a rumor on the radio that a truck bomb had gone off at the State Department, which is where I thought my wife had a reasonable probability of being. About an hour later that rumor got squelched and I could breathe easier.
Maloney: We went down to the basement. We got into a staff member’s car and drove out of the city. We got to an area where I could rent a car, and I rented a car and started driving back to New York City.
Issa: We were at Capitol Police headquarters for a couple of hours, and that’s where the plan to try and come back that evening for a gathering on the steps of the Capitol was thought out.
Otter: After that everybody broke up and went in different directions. I went back to my apartment.
Maloney: They had all of these barricades set up along Interstate 95 saying, “New York’s a disaster zone. Turn back. Don’t go.” But I thought I could get to New Jersey or the suburbs. As we got closer we learned there was one bridge open, the Tappan Zee. It’s the only time that my congressional ID was worth anything. It let me get through the barricades. I went across the Tappan Zee and you could see the towers were gone. It was like a knife into my heart. When I got back to New York — I live on the Upper East Side, and usually it’s very congested and busy, but it was deserted. No one was out. Cars weren’t on the street. Everyone had either evacuated or gone to their homes. I remember walking down the street and strangers would run up and hug me and start crying. People were deeply hurt.
Baird: That night around 9 p.m. the leadership gathered with us on the steps of the Capitol. After the leadership made their speeches, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) was standing next to me, and said under his breath, “We ought to sing ‘God Bless America.’ ” I said, “If two of us sing ‘God Bless America,’ everybody will join in, and that’s probably what the country needs.” So I reached over and said, “Dana, let’s do it, I’m with you.” And I held his hand, and he and I began singing “God Bless America” and the rest of the Congress joined in and it became a good thing for the country, I think.
Bonjean: It was actually just going to be the leaders themselves giving a statement, but the members overwhelmed that decision and said, “If you’re there, you guys are there, we’re going to be there too.” The members sat on the stairs behind the leaders, which we agreed that one leader would say something. And after that is when someone started singing “God Bless America.” That was spontaneous. Now whenever I hear that song, I get a spine chill.
Rehberg: That act of singing on the Capitol steps broke through that feeling of isolation. For me, it was a realization that we’re all in this together. There weren’t any Republicans or Democrats — just Americans. It’s that sense of a national community that makes this country great, and that gives us the strength to face any challenge. I still get those feelings every time I hear that song.
