Thirty-five members of Congress who were in office on September 11, 2001, are still serving in Washington.
Congressman Frank Pallone (D-NJ) is one of them. Pallone represents part of New Jersey, just across the river from Ground Zero. The town of Middletown, in his district, had the highest death toll outside of New York City. Pallone was on the House floor that September morning.
“All of a sudden, as we were ready to speak and deliver our one-minute speeches, that’s when we were told that we had to leave the floor because there had been an attack on the World Trade Center,” Pallone said.
Assistant Chief of U.S. Capitol Police Jessica Ruskoski grew up in Pallones district. She was an officer assigned to the first responders’ unit that day, charged with patrolling the area around the Capitol building.
“I remember hearing that there’s a plane inbound for the U.S. Capitol building, and its about 20 minutes out,” Ruskoski said.
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That plane was United Flight 93, which crashed in a Pennsylvania field after passengers fought back against the hijackers. The 9/11 Commission Report, released nearly three years after the attacks, determined the hijackers’ target was likely one of the symbols of the American republic: the U.S. Capitol Building. Ruskoski was assisting with evacuations from the building that day.
“I recall at a given point we had run back out, and we were surrounding the west side of the U.S. Capitol, and we were working to evacuate members of Congress. And I remember constantly looking back up at the dome, and thinking, how is this going to fall? How is this dome going to collapse?”
Ruskoski said there was no certainty whether another plane was going to strike.
“It was the tracking of Flight 93. It was the there is a flight inbound for the U.S. Capitol building, and I’ll never forget those words because that’s heavy.
Pallone described being forced to leave the House floor.
“I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to leave the chambers. I didn’t want to leave the Capitol. I didn’t want to leave my office,” Pallone said.
At dusk, on the day of the attacks, lawmakers from both parties banded together on the Capitol steps. That moment lawmakers singing “God Bless America” became an enduring image of unity in the face of tragedy.
Congressman Steny Hoyer (D-MD), who served for two decades as the second highest-ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives, called the moment a show of unity and strength.
“On the steps, what you saw was the representative of the American people wanting to stand up and say, ‘We are here. We’re not going away. We’re not cowed, and we are going to defeat our enemies,'” Hoyer said.