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.