We in the Port Authority’s Washington DC Office were safely distant from the attacks on the WTC but with so many friends and colleagues there it was both personal and unreal. News reports drew the four or five of us to the television screen. (At some point I pushed record on the VHS deck, thinking a recording could be useful. Years later, I tossed the several tape cartridges. VHS format eventually became outmoded and virtually anything on video can be found online, but I simply do not rewatch what occurred that morning.) Of course, it wasn’t long before the horror of the day intruded a few miles away. A commercial jet breached the Pentagon, taking a terrible toll on 64 passengers and 125 who worked there, including an office where I would meet Army Corps of Engineers personnel.
In the days and months that followed we all learned the fullness of what had been at risk that morning — the US Capitol included — as well as what we lost.
A month following the attacks it became unavoidably real when Nancy and I traveled from our home in Virginia to Manhattan. The air had a lingering pungency when we emerged from the tunnel. Dan Maynard, our (late) colleague in the Public Affairs Department, drove us around the site as workers continued their floodlit search for lost lives. Being there that night and again in the months and years that followed served as unnecessary reminders of the reality of the unimaginable.
Stories told by those who survived were reminders that the prolonged melancholy and heaviness that I felt into the next year could not measure up to what you were experiencing. I had – still have – unceasing admiration for the people who took up the task to recover and rebuild at the site. Apart from the destruction downtown, an impressive recovery of operations took place at the other facilities and at new, if temporary, locations. We in DC assisted our dislocated colleagues who were rapidly reassigned to develop heightened expertise in transportation security. They participated in policy development meetings and hearings. Congress and federal agencies worked to understand security vulnerabilities at ports, airports, river crossings and transit facilities. PA personnel were essential to that effort.
From 1949 until it was (foolishly) closed in December 2005, the Port Authority’s office overlooked Farragut Square, three blocks from the White House. We worked with PA executives and staff to inform the shaping of federal policy — some of it very specifically concerning our bistate agency — and engage with organizations on matters of common interest.
In the numbing days of September, we recorded in the PA directory what we could learn of survivors and those who were gone, hoping we might serve as a clearinghouse for callers. In the months and years that followed, the events of that day dominated the work of Port Authority personnel in Washington. New laws and regulations were written, debated and adopted; government was reorganized. Recovery, rebuilding and security were the all-consuming objectives for our agency and the nation.
Paul H Bea Jr.
North Andover, Massachustts
