Christine Peterson, ’73 October 18, 2001
Christine Peterson, ’73 found herself in the thick of last month’s terrorist tragedy, and submitted this report. It offers a personal perspective on the events in Washington, D.C., which have perhaps been overshadowed in the media by the scope of the horrors in New York.
It was 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday, September 11th, and traffic was terrible. For all of my twenty-eight years living in the Washington, D.C. area, terrible traffic was a constant.
I’d been in Boston the day before and gotten home late. That morning I repacked my suitcase because I was heading out to San Francisco on the 3:20 p.m. flight. I just needed a few hours in the office first, and now I was officially late for work.
I was at a complete stop on the road in front of the helipad at the Pentagon; what I had thought would be a shortcut was as slow as the other routes I had taken that morning. I looked idly out my window to the left -- and saw a plane flying so low I said, “holy cow, that plane is going to hit my car” (not my actual words). The car shook as the plane flew over. It was so close that I could read the numbers under the wing.
And then the plane crashed. My mind could not comprehend what had happened. Where did the plane go? For some reason I expected it to bounce off the Pentagon wall in pieces. But there was no plane visible, only huge billows of smoke and torrents of fire. Now I wanted to get as far away as I could, but that was impossible. The people around me had gotten out of their cars. At least half had cameras and the others were on their cell phones. I experienced a moment of irrelevant amazement that so many people had cameras in their cars.
A few minutes later a second, much smaller explosion got the attention of the police arriving on the scene. They began ordering people back into their cars and away. I drove to work knowing that I would not be flying anywhere for a while. In the office I handled all the details that an emergency of this magnitude creates.
But on my way home that night I found myself thinking about the times I had felt safe and protected. In my mind I saw a vivid image from my years at NAU: the bright blue sky, beautiful San Francisco Peaks, and friendly campus -- worlds away from what I had seen this morning.
We have all been deeply affected by the tragedies of September 11th. As we prepare for a future that is uncertain, the memories of a more innocent time -- a time spent in Flagstaff -- are more fondly remembered than ever.