Remembering 911 - the bomb threat at American University, the scariest phone call of my life

For many of us, 911 conjures up incredible emotion and a turning point in our world views.  My experiences the week of 911 had a tremendous impact on me, so I wanted to share my story.

On Tuesday September 11, 2001, I was a senior at American University in D.C.  I was the "RA On Duty" for several thousand students in the Letts-Anderson-Centennial dorms.  I had the "RA On Duty" pager for me to be contacted if there was an emergency.  I was in my RA dorm room working on a paper and IMing with my good friend Kevin Malecek (this was before the era of gchat, facebook, twitter, etc).  I had seen a number of IMs about the first plane hitting the first tower and turned on the tv to CNN.  Then I watched the second plane on tv.  Then Kevin called my landline phone (cells had already started to fail) and said - "OMG Becca, I just saw a plane hit the Pentagon."  Kevin lived in a high rise apartment in Pentagon City and was looking out his window and watched the plane crash into the Pentagon.  We knew we were under attack. 

Rumors began flying online that Hamas was to blame.  Someone said that the White House had been hit.  Others said a car bomb exploded at State Department.  Another news report said that the National Mall was on fire.  No one knew what was going on - but we could see the smoke from the Pentagon.  We could hear the sirens rushing down Mass Ave (The Naval Observatory and the Vice President's residence were a few blocks from the university).  We saw the fear and panic on everyone's faces.

I kept checking my RA On Duty pager and was stunned to see that I hadn't been paged, so I went down to the front desk of the dorm to discovery that they had frantically been trying to reach me but all lines of communication had malfunctioned.  I joined the dorm's front desk staff and we immediately began trouble-shooting how to help our residents.  We had many many students with parents, siblings, relatives in NYC - we tried to help students reach their families despite the lack of working phone lines.  Instant messenger was a vital form of communication that day.  We didn't know much - who was alive? Who was responsible? Who had lost a loved one? But we knew we were at war.

Fast forward two days later to Thursday September 11, 2011.  The world was a different place. The smoke had subsided and sirens were silent, but the Pentagon still smoldered and the students were still in a daze.  But some things continue just the same and the university re-opened - and again, my RA responsibilities dictated that I was working the front desk of the Anderson/Centennial dorm from 8-11am that morning.  Shortly after my shift began, I answered the phone and didn't think twice that the caller ID said "Unknown Number."  I will never ever forget that conversation.

Me: "Good morning, Anderson/Centennial."
Caller: "Today at 12 o'clock noon, I will blow up American University with a bomb. In the name of Allah, many people will die at American University. Very bloody.  Noon today."  Then he said something in Arabic and hung up.

Yes, I was the person at AU who answered the bomb threat call.  It has been 10 years and I still remember his voice, his accent, and his exact words.  And then he called again, 15 minutes later to remind us of his message. 

I immediately sprung into emergency mode and vaguely remembered something in RA training about emergency protocol for natural disasters, fires, etc - but couldn't remember anything about a bomb threat! I contacted the powers that be and we quickly initiated a massive campus evacuation.  But with a bomb threat, you can't pull the fire alarm in the buildings to evacuate because you don't know if the bomb is part of the fire alarm.  So, at 9am we had to go door to door pulling sleeping students out of their rooms to evacuate.  I went into the bathrooms and pulled students out of the showers and they had to evacuate in their towels and bathrobes. 

And then we began helping the police and FBI search the buildings for "suspicious packages."  Every time I turned a corner or opened a door, I was convinced I was going to find this crazy Arab man covered in explosives.  After many many hours, they found nothing and declared the campus safe to return to - although so many students packed up (including me) and went out of town for the weekend to get away from it all.  The FBI caught the person who called in the bomb threat - he had been making similar calls around town.

It has been 10 years.  During the past ten years I graduated from college and law school, moved many times, gotten married, had two amazing children, launched my career, and traveled. I've been to Arab countries before 911 and after.  I will never be the same after September 11, 2001. I will never forget.

Noah at 5 months - sweet, smiley, and sitting beautifully!

Noah continues to be an incredibly sweet and smiley baby.  At 5 months he weighs about 14.5 pounds and is ready to take on the world.  Again and again he is amazing us - not to brag, but this is my blog so I will! 

He is very far ahead on milestones.  After rolling over at 3 weeks, he began sitting up at 4 months.  At 5 months he is sitting up and holding himself up for 5+ minutes at a time.




Noah sitting up and playing with a toy.  Sam was playing with another toy in the playroom and as soon as he noticed Noah playing with this toy, he ran over and insisted on playing with it too - even though he hasn't touched this toy since he was about 10 months old.  I have a feeling that this will not be the last time I have to teach Sam to share toys with his younger brother! Ha!


He is incredibly strong and regularly tries to sit up while lying flat on his back.  We jokingly refer to it as his baby crunches - see below!



Noah & Uncle David smiling at each other at Burke Lake Park.  Noah's favorite thing to do is smile at people.  He loves studying faces and interacting with people - he is such a social little guy and will coo and laugh until he gets your attention!



Laughing and laughing with Pa!

However, his favorite person is his big brother Sam.  He loves to watch Sam clown around and is incredibly tolerant and patient with Sam's silly antics - like when Sam practices balancing plastic cups on Noah's head while they are in the bath (check out the video below)

He loves to play with big brother Sam!

Noah loves doing everything Sam does - like playing together at Little Gym!

 He enjoys singing songs with Sam - like this video, except when Sam smothers him in hugs (see the end of this one).

Noah copies everything Sam does - here they are driving a toy car together at the mall.












Sam is a wonderful big brother and after naptime, Noah sometimes visits Sam in his crib and Sam reads his books to Noah! They are so sweet together - here's a video of Sam reading his beloved Pooh story to Noah.
 

Noah is VERY interested in the food we eat and anxious to begin eating like his big brother Sam.  The other day Sam was eating pizza and left the crusts on the plate (yes we feed our child pizza, don't call the healthy food police on us!).  Noah reached out and grabbed the pizza crust and went to eat it (thankfully we stopped it before he got it to his mouth, but he is READY to eat!)

First sip of water from a real glass

First time trying baby food.  He likes sweet potato, but isn't such a fan of squash.

Mimi feeding Noah cereal

He is a rather messy eater and often gets food squished under his chin and in his baby neck rolls.  He is quite ticklish and laughs every time I attempt to clean the food off his neck. Check it out:

He is such a ham and even knows how to play peek-a-boo on his own! He takes a burp cloth and lifts it up over his face and when we say "Peek a boo" he pulls it down!  We finally managed to catch this on video - we are truly truly amazed by this!

He is still a phenomenal sleeper and regularly sleeps 8pm - 7am.  After him sleeping for 5 months in the swing because of his reflux, we decided to try out the crib again.  We tried it around 4 months and it didn't go so well, I was nervous but he did beautifully!  He is a very inconsistent napper.  Some days he naps for an hour in the morning and 2-3 hours in the afternoon.  Other days he naps 20 minutes, 2x/day and other days he refuses to nap more than 5 minutes 2x/day!


Here's a pic of him sleeping via our video monitor.  He loves to sleep with his arms folded behind his head, just like Sam and Brad.



He frequently falls asleep in the stroller, often with his hand clenched tightly around a toy - even if the toy is suspended up in the air above him (like this picture, where he is fast asleep!)

He LOVES music and calms very quickly when we turn on music.  This is a video of Noah and Brad from music class.

Noah recently discovered his feet! And they are delicious!

Yay feet!

 He is very verbal and has even started saying MAMA! He loves to screech and laugh - he has a lot of fun experimenting with the different sounds he can make with his voice. 

He is a pretty terrific little guy.  I think we'll keep him.