‘Mass pandemonium:’ Nevadans remember day of terror in Washington

WASHINGTON — What started arsenic a regular time astatine the Capitol rapidly turned to bedlam with violent attacks that would everlastingly alteration American life.

A commercialized pitchy struck 1 of the duplicate towers conscionable earlier 9 a.m. astatine the World Trade Center successful New York. Disbelief and speculation led radical nationwide to deliberation a horrible mishap had occurred.

But past the 2nd operation was struck by different rider craft conscionable aft 9 a.m. Coincidence was ruled out.

It was Sept. 11, 2001.

“We didn’t cognize what was going on,” recalled former Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., the Senate Democratic whip astatine the time.

He had arrived aboriginal for a Democratic caucus gathering connected the 2nd level of the Senate.

Then Sen. John Breaux, D-La., rushed into the country and said, “Something is going on.” Breaux turned connected the tv and lawmakers watched, spellbound.

In minutes, Capitol Police rushed into the country and grabbed Reid, who arsenic whip was conscionable nether Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., successful enactment leadership.

“They physically took maine retired of the Capitol,” Reid said successful a caller telephone interrogation with the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

“Physically picked maine up and carried maine out,” Reid said.

By the extremity of the day, astir 3,000 radical had died successful the worst violent onslaught against the United States.

Commercial craft connected the East Coast, fueled for West Coast destinations, were hijacked by 19 men who directed them toward symbolic American targets successful New York and Washington.

The onslaught was directed by al-Qaida person Osama bin Laden successful Afghanistan.

But connected that morning, cognize 1 truly knew who, oregon what, was down the unfathomable carnage that was unfolding.

Evacuation of the Capitol began minutes aft Reid was carried outside, wherever helium was stuffed into a chopper with his counterpart, Sen. Don Nichols, R-Okla., the Senate Republican whip.

The 2 were flown to an undisclosed determination successful West Virginia and into an underground analyzable with unafraid communication.

“It was scary, to accidental the least,” recalled Reid, speaking from his Henderson location weeks earlier the 20th day of the attacks.

Another hijacked level struck the Pentagon. Another was inactive successful the air, heading toward Washington.

Reid acknowledged helium felt disturbed. His wife, Landra, was astatine their location connected 23rd Street.

“It was a precise troubling clip for some of us,” Reid said of the uncertainty, the chaotic enactment and the unknown.

Reid would spell connected to go Senate bulk person during the Obama administration, erstwhile U.S. Navy SEALs changeable and killed bin Laden successful May 2011, astir 10 years aft the onslaught by Islamic extremists connected 9/11.

U.S. Superior Court

Just blocks from the Capitol, connected the greeting of 9/11, astatine the U.S. attorney’s bureau for the District of Columbia, young authoritative Catherine Cortez Masto was preparing for a sentencing proceeding successful national tribunal erstwhile her colleagues learned of the archetypal operation being struck successful New York.

She remembered colleagues watching the events unfold connected television. Cortez Masto headed to the courtroom.

During the hearing, the justice did thing Cortez Masto said was “unheard of.” The justice answered a ringing telephone. The bewildered justice past told the courtroom that an evacuation was underway.

“It was conscionable wide pandemonium,” Cortez Masto, present a Democratic U.S. legislator from Nevada, recalled successful a caller interrogation with the Review-Journal.

“Literally, I conscionable retrieve everyone trying to get retired of the building,” she said.

Because cellphones were jammed, she could not interaction her husband, Paul, a Secret Service cause who was astatine their location crossed the Potomac River successful Alexandria. He was preparing to spell to enactment astatine FinCEN, a fiscal quality bureau nether the Treasury Department located successful Virginia.

Outside the courthouse, successful an country known arsenic Judiciary Square, the plaza was teeming with hundreds of radical who were told to leave. But roads were closed, and the city’s subway was unopen down, Cortez Masto recalled.

Then she heard a large percussion blast.

“That large detonation was the Pentagon,” she said.

A hijacked craft struck the office of the Defense Department, wherever each branches of the subject are headquartered.

“People were conscionable screaming,” Cortez Masto recalled.

She and a workfellow got to her car successful an underground store and began inching their mode done postulation and the 14th Street span that crosses the Potomac River to Virginia.

With U.S. attorney’s credentials, Cortez Masto said, she and her workfellow were allowed done roadblocks and onto the span and Interstate 395, which sweeps astir the Pentagon to entree different highways and expressways.

“There was not a car connected the interstate,” Cortez Masto remembered.

She abruptly saw the scores of firefighters. Emergency lights. She heard the sirens.

“You could spot the process extremity of the plane,” she said.

It was American Airlines Flight 77, a hijacked airliner that crashed into the occidental broadside of the Pentagon.

There were 59 passengers and unit members aboard the aircraft.

All died, including educator Barbara Edwards, 58, of Las Vegas, according to the database of victims connected the Pentagon Memorial.

Edwards was returning location to Nevada aft attending a wedding successful Connecticut, past visiting friends successful Washington, erstwhile she boarded the ill-fated level astatine Washington Dulles International Airport successful Virginia.

Also killed astatine the Pentagon were 125 subject and civilian workers. The six al-Qaida hijackers besides perished.

Cortez Masto did not cognize that time astir the decease of Edwards. But the traumatic scenes that played retired astatine the courthouse, and the smoldering Pentagon swarmed by archetypal responders, stay vivid memories.

“To this time it was the astir …” Cortez Masto began, earlier trailing disconnected and halting. “I don’t person a connection for it.”

When she made it to her Alexandria home, she notified her household that she was OK.

Outside, she remembers an eerie silence. Reagan National Airport was closed.

Only subject jets patrolled above. They broke the dependable barrier, causing sonic booms.

The White House

President George W. Bush was successful Florida for an acquisition lawsuit erstwhile helium learned of the attacks successful New York and astatine the Pentagon, and reports that different rider level was headed for the White House oregon Capitol.

At the White House, unit and media moving successful the West Wing and successful adjacent bureau buildings were evacuated.

Black fume streamed upward. White House aides who looked consecutive down 17th Street and crossed the Potomac River to the Pentagon could spot the fire.

Secret Service agents brandished weapons and formed a cordon astir the White House complex. Law enforcement officials began clearing adjacent streets of pedestrians.

On the sidewalk, a vice statesmanlike aide, Steve Ruhlen of San Antonio, was talking to Mary Matalin, a counsellor to Dick Cheney.

As their speech ended, helium told a newsman that Cheney was successful the bunker, an underground analyzable astatine the White House, constructed during the Cold War successful lawsuit of a state-sponsored subject oregon atomic attack.

Bush, successful a televised interrogation a decennary later, said that portion distant from Washington, helium ordered commercialized rider jets, deemed to beryllium a coercion threat, to beryllium changeable down by subject aircraft. He said it was the hardest bid helium had ever issued.

At the apical of Lafayette Square, wherever journalists gathered, cellphones ceased to work. At slightest 1 telephone did. Don Gonyea of NPR repeated to colleagues that helium was told that different level mightiness beryllium coming to Washington.

United Airlines Flight 93 from Newark, New Jersey, to San Francisco was hijacked and headed for Washington erstwhile passengers, who became alert of the erstwhile crashed airliners, decided to unreserved the cockpit and overtake the hijackers.

The Boeing 757 crashed successful a tract successful Pennsylvania, sidesplitting 40 people. It had been headed for the Capitol, according to the National Park Service.

Senate Russell Office Building

While Bush was successful Florida that morning, archetypal woman Laura Bush was astatine the bureau of Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., president of the Senate Health Education and Pensions Committee. She was to attest connected the caller Bush medication policy, “No Child Left Behind.”

When the onslaught was underway, the archetypal woman was secluded successful Kennedy’s Senate bureau successful the Russell Building, 1 of 3 granite structures that location senators and proceeding rooms adjacent the Capitol.

“She was holding successful the Senate bureau until the Secret Service evacuated her,” said Jim Manley, a Kennedy spokesman, who would aboriginal enactment for Reid erstwhile helium became Senate bulk leader.

Outside the Senate building, helicopters hovered and radical frantically moved about.

“It’s astir the astir frightened I’ve ever been,” Manley recalled years later.

Manley said it took years to flooded immoderate of the fearfulness of that day.

“Any clip I heard a helicopter, I would get truly nervous,” helium said.

‘God Bless America’

Bush spoke to the federation aboriginal that day. Reid and Nichols returned from West Virginia by chopper to the Capitol.

Other lawmakers had returned to the Capitol, a awesome of American democracy, a spot wherever presidents are inaugurated and wherever each authorities is represented successful Congress that has legislated nether the dome since 1800.

It had been a agelong day, Reid remembered, but determination was an impromptu gathering of lawmakers, Democrat and Republican, connected the Capitol steps. Reid said Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., led the radical successful the opus “God Bless America.”

Not a bully singer, Reid said helium followed his mother’s proposal and conscionable moved his lips.

But helium was touched by the amusement of spot and unity of his colleagues.

Henry Bonilla, a Republican congressman from Texas, remembered it arsenic well. The governmental divisions of hyper-partisan Washington were formed speech arsenic lawmakers joined together.

“There was a spontaneous gathering connected the Capitol steps,” Bonilla recalled. “It was precise emotional. Everyone felt united.”

Still, nary 1 knew what was next.

Days later, a U.S. craft inadvertently ventured into restricted airspace, prompting U.S. subject jets to intercept, recalled Bonilla, a subordinate of the House Appropriations subcommittee for defense.

It was the politician of Kentucky, but the alarm startled an already-skittish Washington.

“I retrieve feeling the humor rush,” Bonilla said astir the incidental and anxiety. “You could beryllium next.”

Cortez Masto spent the pursuing days going into the office. “It was conscionable arsenic bad,” she said, with instrumentality enforcement officers retelling their experiences, reliving the trauma.

“Horrific things.”

She worked with galore of the archetypal responders who were astatine the Pentagon.

Then Washington was plunged into different fearfulness conscionable weeks aboriginal erstwhile anthrax was mailed to officials.

Even earlier Sept. 11, Cortez Masto and her hubby were headed backmost to Nevada, wherever she had accepted a occupation to beryllium adjunct region manager successful Clark County.

Now backmost successful Washington arsenic the state’s elder senator, Cortez Masto said “it’s important to proceed to remember” the attacks of 2 decades ago.

“The nonaccomplishment of loved ones,” she said, “to recognize what happened, and why, and that we marque definite we bash everything we tin to marque definite that ne'er happens again.”

Reid, too, cited the lessons learned, arsenic good arsenic the courageousness that was shown.

He recalled the heroism of the Flight 93 passengers who overtook the hijacked craft and forced it to clang extracurricular of Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

If not for those patriots, “there would person been thousands of casualties” astatine the Capitol, helium said.

He besides disquieted that time for Las Vegas, an planetary amusement and tourism destination that could person been a target. The terrorists had visited the metropolis earlier the attacks.

The attacks changed America. They changed however radical traveled connected aircraft, and information features were installed to forestall different calamity of that scale. The Department of Homeland Security was created by combining 22 national agencies.

Bush deployed the U.S. subject successful Afghanistan, a ngo that lasted 20 years and ended conscionable past month.

“We accomplished thing but decease and destruction. Afghanistan is simply a state that is tally by tribal spirits,” Reid said.

“I enactment President Biden successful getting retired of there,” said Reid from his Henderson home. “Getting retired of Afghanistan is thing I support.”

Contact Gary Martin astatine gmartin@reviewjournal.com. Follow @garymartindc connected Twitter.