" Stuck In Traffic"
Worse than normal traffic for a Tuesday morning rush hour in Washington D.C. We were getting nowhere fast. It was hard to fathom the events we heard unfolding on the radio. The events we were hearing on the radio were about what was happening on September 11, 2001.
It started out as an exciting day for my wife Cheryl and I. It was the day we were going to have an amniocentesis done to find out the sex and health of our baby. We went about our normal routine of getting the kids up and getting them ready to go to day care. We took the kids to the day care center and we took them to their usual classrooms- gave them a hug and a kiss and said "goodbye." We left and started our commute toward Georgetown University Medical Center. That's where my wife's doctor appointment was at and that's also where my baby was born. Heading towards Interstate 395 we ran into traffic. Traffic was crawling like the tortoise from the children's book "Tortoise and the Hare."
The sun was shining bright and it was a nice clear day. Traffic was still inching along. My wife and I decided to turn the radio to one of our favorite stations 0630 WMAL. By this time we had move up the road right past the Glebe Road exit. We were listening to the usual broadcast of Tim and Andy In the Morning and just chatting about what the problem could be with the traffic. It was past rush hour and traffic was unusually congested for that time of day. We had inched out way up to the area of Pentagon City.
On the radio, while we were listening to Tim and Andy In the Morning, an ABC broadcaster came on the air and interrupted the broadcast so the listeners could listen to a live interview with an eyewitness, who had seen the first plane hit the first building of the World Trade Center in New York City. I looked over to my wife Cheryl and she had a look of shock on her face. She told me later on that I had the same look on my face. At the same time we heard the eyewitness on the radio saying "Oh my god." The broadcaster doing the interview on the scene for ABC then said "Another plane has just flown into the second building of the World Trade Center here in New York City." My wife looked over at me and said "This wasn't an accident." I agreed with her and we started to contemplate who could do such an act of terrorism. We exited off Interstate 395 to get on Washington Boulevard. As we came off the exit we ran into more bumper-to-bumper traffic. The traffic moved slowly down the road toward the Pentagon. When we reached the Pentagon I heard thumping sounds of helicopter blades going through the air. I looked around to see where the helicopter was coming from. I caught a glimpse of the helicopter heading towards the top of our car. I watch it pass over our car and saw it come into a hover by the Pentagon. I watched it land at the helicopter-landing pad and I could hear the engines idling and the sound of the blades thumping through the air echo...
