It was arguably the darkest day in American history, and it happened 25 years ago today. 2,977 people were killed when 19 terrorists hijacked four planes; two of them were flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center, one was flown into the Pentagon, and the other crashed in a remote field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after passengers who got word of the other three hijackings overpowered the terrorists.
Trey Williams is currently the spokesman for Louisiana Secretary of State Nancy Landry; but on September 11th, 2001, Williams was working at the Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, DC. He was in his office building as American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon a short distance away and while United Airlines Flight 93 was still in the air.
“We were, told all of a sudden, we needed to get out of the building. We had to drop everything and just get out of the building. We really didn’t know why. And then, looking back, we know that that plane was heading towards the Capitol,” Williams recalled.
Like everyone else, Williams was trying to get home at that point; but with public transit shut down, his only options were driving or walking. With traffic at a standstill, Williams chose to walk several hours home, and the images he saw on his way home will stick with him forever, and not just the bad ones.
“As bad as that day was, I saw a lot of great humanity in that day in the sense that people had signs holding up that saying if you needed a ride, and people were just jumping in strangers’ cars to get a ride out,” Williams noted.
Cell phones weren’t nearly as abundant in September 2001 as they are today, and texting hadn’t been invented yet. Still, Williams was able to contact a family member back in Louisiana, who in turn contacted all other loved ones to let them know that he was safe.
Williams says his roommate worked in the Pentagon not too far from where the plane crashed; he was able to get out okay.
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