What Happened at the Eisenhower Building

Attacks on U.S. Change Life at NIH
By Rich McManus
Photos by Rich McManus, Bill Branson, Lew Bass

On the Front Page...

The transition from peacetime's reliable routine to wartime anxiety took place in only minutes as NIH employees came to work on an otherwise spectacular late summer morning Sept. 11 and discovered by 9:45 — via office televisions, radio, the web, phone calls and hallway conversations — that terrorism on an almost unimaginable scale was taking place in New York City and in the heart of Washington, D.C. The workday froze as workers tuned in to the news — the World Trade Center towers in flames, and smoke rising from behind the Old Executive Office building near the White House.

http://www.nih.gov/news/NIH-Record/10_02_2001/story01.htm

(...)

Staff members in the Old Executive Office Building, across the street from the White House, were huddled in front of their TV screens when they heard from TV reporters that they were being evacuated. Then the tape loop began. "The building is being evacuated. Please walk to the nearest exit." "The looks were stone-faced," a staff member to the Vice President said. "They were just zombies," said another.

(...)
www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,174764-5,00.htm

Terrorist Attacks On World Trade Center & Pentagon
by Bryan Chaffin, 9:50 AM EDT, September 11th, 2001

Additional reports are coming in as we write that there is fire in the Pentagon, and cameras on ABC News are showing a huge plume of smoke behind the Old Executive Office Building in Washington DC. It is possible that the two events are one and the same. ABC News has just added that there are reports of a plane crash in the vicinity of the Pentagon.

http://www.macobserver.com/article/2001/09/11.5.shtml

Minute by Minute with the Broadcast News
By Jill Geisler

8:42 ABC's Clair Shipman reports smoke coming from behind the Old Executive Office Building. There is video of the smoke, from a camera position near Lafayette Park. No definitive word on what we are seeing.

www.poynter.org/dg.lts/id.6074/content.content_view.htm

'ABC News' Special Report:
"Planes crash into World Trade Center"
(8:53 AM ET) Tuesday 11 September 2001

Let's go to the White House. Claire Shipman is on the phone.

Claire, what's that we're looking at?

CLAIRE SHIPMAN reporting:

Well, that's what we're trying to figure out right now. All we know is it's this gigantic plume of smoke coming from behind the old Executive Office Building. And we're told that the White House itself, the West Wing at the very least, is being evacuated. The personnel from there are being asked to leave. We've sent people running over there to try to find out what it is. But we don't know yet.

JENNINGS: Now the old Executive Office Building is to the--slightly to the west and a fraction to the south. So we are looking southwest from a camera just across Lafayette Park which is north of the White House. The White House is to the left side, out of your picture. Maybe even the cameraman could give us some appreciation.

But you have no idea. Was that an explosion? Did you hear anything?

SHIPMAN: We did--we did not hear it. In fact, we were trying to figure out from the White House what security precautions they were taking around the White House in the wake of the apparent attacks on the World Trade Center. And we suddenly just saw this smoke rising from behind the old Executive Office Building. We have people on their way there now but it's like nothing I've ever seen. We've never seen that kind of smoke coming from--from anything that would ordinarily occur here.

JENNINGS: I must also tell you, Claire, I think if you think about what's behind the--the EOB there, you're really down in pretty open area. It doesn't look like a place where a building would be on fire.

SHIPMAN: No, that's right, although there are a number of building just behind the old Executive Office Building on G Street that could potentially be on fire. But nothing you would necessarily think of as--as a target. Apparently, we're also...

http://emperor.vwh.net/9-11backups/abc911.htm