We lived, my sister Jean and I, in a home we had built when she retired. It was right in the woods. Riverview Subdivision was the name of the section. It was a private road off Arnold Stickly Road. We didn’t have many neighbors.

Jean and I were stay-at-homes. We had a bunch of cats and a dog. We weren’t much of television watchers. I don’t remember what program we had on, but they broke into it and told about the plane crashing into the building. We were glued to the set from then on.

Then when the other plane hit the Pentagon, that had some personal interest for us because my husband and my son lived close to the Pentagon and there was no hard information about what happened in the surrounding area.

Later I talked to my son. His job took him driving around the area near the Pentagon. He said, “It was like an earthquake.” He felt the road move. Traffic was tied up but he wasn’t hurt. The area around the Pentagon in Alexandria wasn’t particularly damaged. My people seemed safe so far.

The plane that crashed in Pennsylvania....I also have relatives and friends that live near Pittsburgh. We didn’t know where (in Pennsylvania) the plane crashed. We were fascinated but we were frightened. We didn’t know what else was going to happen.

The television kept coverage of the President’s escape into Air Force I and we didn’t know where it was landing. It was a most confusing day because we were trying to figure out what had happened and what was going to happen.

So, that was the day. We spent it with the television. We had to take time out for meals. We had to take care of the animals. We made phone calls and people were calling us. The whole evening, it just went on and on and on........

And those awful pictures, (especially) the one of the plane actually crashing into the side of the building. It was incredible. It just blossomed with fire.

And our animals knew something was going on. They were very antsy. They weren’t fussing at us to do things or pet them, but they were very alert. The television was different than anything they were used to, because of the panic in the voices.

Elizabeth F. Arndt
Age 73 when giving oral account in March, 2004

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