Sept. 11: "It Was As If A Truck Hit A Concrete Wall"

As the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks approaches, Patch is remembering the day through the eyes of Vienna with a series of memoirs and reflections from local officials, police and fire personnel, veterans and residents of town.

They'll offer a glimpse of what Sept. 11 meant for Vienna and how life here has changed in the decade that followed.

As the series progresses, check

Sept 6, 2011: Councilwoman Edythe Kelleher

On 9/11, I was a few minutes late to my then-workplace, the Mason District Government Center. Our family was still getting accustomed to the school year schedule, and our oldest son, then a fifth-grader,
was going on a field trip that day. (He vividly recalls that the trip, to the International Children’s Festival at Wolftrap, was canceled after the attacks.)

As I pulled into the parking lot, news of the second plane striking the World Trade Center was on the radio. I raced into the office to find my colleagues already glued to the TV in the conference room, where we remained all day.

We heard and felt the Pentagon get hit; the sound carried to our location on Columbia Pike just past Baileys Crossroads. It was as if a truck hit a concrete wall. We were later told that the plane flew right
outside a Skyline office building.

A woman from Code Enforcement called me on a county matter just as the first tower fell. She said that they in Structures were amazed the towers remained standing as long as they did.

But my most remarkable memory of 9/11 is of coming home to Vienna and seeing that the American Legion had put up the flags along Maple Avenue. After such a horrible day, it felt good to be home and good that home was a place like Vienna.