After days of being a mere 30 miles from the Pentagon but only seeing its damage on TV, my wife and I drove to see it. After driving by on I-395, we realized that you can’t see the Pentagon from the northbound lanes until you’re too far east to see the west side.
We exited and drove through Crystal City up to the top of Arlington Ridge, then drove along it to its northern terminus near the interstate. From there, the damaged side was in plain view.
There was about 100 people there, taking photos, praying, or just staring. A few memorial flags adorned the nearby chainlink fence, trees, and lightposts.
What amazed me was the actual scale of the disaster. The TV shots of course focus on just the damage. But maybe a mere 10% of that side was damaged. (I myself took a few pictures, which I’ll post soon.)
The man in charge of the recent renovation had good pictures at his news conference, and maps showing only a few pillars missing. However, they seem to have closed off 40% of the total building due to smoke and water damage.
Yeah, you’d be amazed at how superficial the damage appears. It’s a huge building! The plane only damaged two of the ten coridors that the Pentagon is divided into.
(Before the crash, my bus used to stop at the subway stop there. Since they’ve restricted use of the Pentagon Metro station to ID’d employees, my bus is now rerouted to Pentagon City via Washington Blvd. Riding that bus from Pentagon City, you can get a pretty good view of the accident and all of the crews working there to retrieve the bodies and the plane as well as the crowds of spectators on the hill that the Navy Annex sits.)
I used to ride my bicycle on the sidewalk that parallels the west side. (It was a shortcut, rather than going clear down to National Airport’s south side and back up from Glebe Rd.) I always noted the heliport’s “tower” (about 25 feet tall), which looked like a regular airport’s tower, only shorter.
It’s kind of freaky being able to say that an exact spot where I frequented was hit by a plane from the sky. (I also have visited the observation level of the WTC towers. That’ll be a bittersweet memory now.)
Percentage-wise, the Pentagon lost as large a share of its staff as the WTC did of its tenants. [unpleasant]But many of the Pentagon victims didn’t have a chance to run. Or even to get up from their desks.[/unpleasant]
Does anyone know why we’re not hearing as much information about the Pentagon as we are about the WTC? I myself would like to hear more about what’s going on there. Or are there security issues that prevent them from distributing as much info as we’ve got regarding New York?
I used to do computer work in the area where the plane hit. My company still has people there, and they were all accounted for. However, I still am trying to follow up on others that I worked with in the building.
I think the thing to bear in mind about The Pentagon is that what you see is not what you get. Those visible (IIRC) 5 floors are deceptive because there is so much more underneath.
It would seem reasonable to think one of the reasons we don’t know more is because officials are keen to protect information about how some of the ‘bomb proof’ areas stood up to the attack.
Or it could be that the media perceives the WTC to be the bigger story because it affected more people. I also thought it was strange that people only talk about the attack in terms of NYC. I even received an email that said “Message to NYC” and my first thought was, “What about the Pentagon? Their deaths are just as tragic.”
It’s pretty clear that the actual breach was no bigger than the size of the plane’s fuselage. It’s the fire & smoke damage that resulted in that whole side being closed off.
Info concerning flight 77 is starting to filter out. A tape recorded by a sergeant stationed at the Pentagon is being reviewed. It reportedly shows the plane indeed headed for the White House first but coming in too steep and would have missed.
