As the 25th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks approaches, former 3rd District Congressman Phil English is reflecting on the day he watched the nation come under attack from his office in Washington.
Returning from a congressional trip to Israel, English arrived at his office in the Longworth Building to news that a plane had struck the World Trade Center’s North Tower. Within minutes, he and his staff watched the second tower get hit by a plane, live on the television in his office.
Not long afterward, 34-minutes to be exact, terror struck across the Potomac River when a third hijacked airplane hit the Pentagon, causing casualties and extensive damage.
“The hit on the Pentagon filled everyone with a lot of terror, because after all the Pentagon was visible smoking from our building,” English said.
English, who served as U.S. Representative in the 3rd District for 7 terms from January 1995 to January 2009, said Congress was utterly unprepared for an attack of that scale. He also reflected on the heroic actions of the passengers aboard United Flight 93, which crashed in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, after those aboard stormed the cockpit, attempting to regain control of the plane from hijackers and prevent further terror attacks.
“If a group of citizens hadn’t intervened to take that flight down there would have been mass casualties in the Capitol complex, there’s no question about that,” he said.
Despite the chaos and fear, English said Congress came together in a way he has not seen since. “It was a moment of national unity that we really haven’t experienced since.”
English also discussed the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. He said President George W. Bush’s decision to appoint Erie native and then-Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge to lead the new department was the right call. And he believes the foundation Sec. Ridge laid in the DHS has made the United States safer since the war on terror began that day.
“They know what they’re looking for and the intelligence apparatus has done a very good job of sifting the kind of attack that we experienced then.”
Still, English said the threat landscape has changed, particularly with the rise of cyberattacks. “Oceans no longer protect us and that’s perhaps the biggest single takeaway.”
For English, another lasting takeaway from September 11 is the importance of faith.
That night, he went to pray at the National Basilica in Washington. There, he encountered men from Lawrence Park, in his district, who had driven to the nation’s capital to pray. “And they set an extraordinary example that typified the reaction of many people in the United States on a day like that.”
English said he never learned who the men from Lawrence Park were, but he would like to meet them. He said their faith made a lasting impact on him.