Tuesday morning, a phone call from a friend began one of the most surreal days of Mississippi State student Betsy Allison’s life.
“My friend called me and told me to turn on the news. She knew my dad worked at the Pentagon, and as soon as I saw, it I started crying,” Betsy said. “This morning (Tuesday) is all a blur.”
Sam Allison, Betsy’s father, works at the Pentagon and an office building in Crystal City, Va., just two or three miles from the Pentagon. Tuesday, when the plane crashed into the Pentagon, he happened to be in Crystal City.
“He works in Army War Plan. I don’t know what that means or what he does, but that’s the way he answers the phone.”
“I had no idea where my dad was,” Betsy said. “It was awful; I was walking around here wide-eyed all morning. I think people were afraid to talk to me because they knew what I was going through.”
Betsy’s mother, Bonnie Allison, works as a high school counselor in Alexandria, Va.
“When I found out, I was actually doing a presentation in a classroom full of ninth graders. A fellow counselor came to tell me, but, fortunately, by the time I found out, Sam had already called and left a message saying he was all right. For about 30 seconds, I was panicked,” Bonnie said.
Here in Starkville, Betsy called her teachers and explained her situation. “I told them I would be in class, but I might be late because I didn’t know where my dad was.”
“I didn’t have anything to do besides sit here and watch the news. I was on my way to class, on the shuttle, when my mom called to tell me my dad was okay,” Betsy said.
Since phone lines were tied up and everyone was trying to get through to people they were concerned about, getting in touch with Betsy was difficult, Bonnie said.
“It was very hard for me to get to Betsy. The phone lines were inaccessible, and it took several hours for me to finally get through to her. I was really worried. I knew she was sitting down there worrying about her dad not knowing what was going on. It was after 11 a.m. (EST) when I talked to her,” Bonnie said.
Later in the day, after her mother gave her Sam’s phone number at work, Betsy got in touch with her father at his office in Crystal City.
“When I finally talked to him, I asked him what he was doing, and he said, ‘eating my lunch,’ like everything was fine and it was no big deal.”
“He told me he sent me an email saying he was all right, but I was in class, so I didn’t get it,” Betsy said.
The wing of the Pentagon that collapsed is the Army wing, the part of the building where Sam works, and he was actually in the Pentagon Monday.
“Yesterday (Monday), he walked right by the place the plane hit today (Tuesday),” Bonnie said.
“My dad works in that wing. I just kept thinking, ‘that could have been my father,'” Betsy said.
The Pentagon and other federal buildings were shut down and evacuated Tuesday after the attacks, but the Pentagon, along with most other buildings, reopened Wednesday morning.
“It’s the hub of military activity,” Bonnie said. “It had to open.”
The school where Bonnie works is another story. Many public schools in the area cancelled school Wednesday.
“At this moment, they’re taking it one day at a time,” Bonnie said.
Many students at the high school where Bonnie works have parents who work at the Pentagon.
“It’s been a long, long day today (Tuesday). We were dealing with kids who couldn’t reach their parents.”
“I was amazed at how calm they (the students) really stayed. There was a lot of activity here, and the phone lines were all tied up, but it was a calm sort of hysteria,” Bonnie said.
“I think this is so far-reaching, there will be few people who are untouched.”
As for Betsy, she said seeing the Pentagon in flames has been surreal.
“None of it has really set in,” Betsy said. “I can’t fathom what I would do if I was there, and seeing familiar places on TV is just surreal. I never thought I’d see a picture on screen that says ‘The Pentagon’ with rubble, debris and ambulances everywhere. It doesn’t even look like the United States to me.”
Surreal is the same word Bonnie used to describe Tuesday’s events.
“It’s like watching a horror movie and forcing yourself to believe it’s real.”
“I’m sitting here watching places I go everyday on the television. There’s a shopping mall across the street from the Pentagon that I go to all the time.”
“The most difficult thing for me to do is to sit here and realize that this is real,” Bonnie said.
Editor’s note: This article was published in The Reflectoron Sept. 14, 2001.