Washington
September 11, 2001, in Washington, D.C.
Another sad anniversary of one of our nation’s darkest days, the September 11 attack on the United States, has again passed.
Much has been written about those who gave their lives in New York, Shanksville and Washington. There are so many stories of heroism and sacrifice. On Wednesday, we honored them again.
On September 11, 2001, I lived in Northern Virginia, 20 miles south of the Pentagon, where we had lived for many years. As I left for work that morning, I noticed how incredibly blue the sky was. It was almost like a painting. It was stunning. It was the same clear blue sky in New York, according to newscasters there.
The last hijacked plane, Flight 77, crashed into the Pentagon at 9:37 a.m. Lives everywhere in our area were changed immediately. Everyone seemed to know someone at the Pentagon who did not survive or was injured.
One friend knew someone on Flight 77 that crashed into the Pentagon. Our receptionist at work had a neighbor at the Pentagon, who was not too far from the impact. She had crawled through the smoke and loose wires that served as a makeshift guide to lead people to safety. A White House network correspondent friend of mine had just walked into the West Wing.
Alarms were going off and Secret Service agents were running everywhere. It was total pandemonium. There are so many more stories.
For my family, my daughters will never forget where they were at the time of the crashes. My oldest daughter lived in an apartment building perilously close to the Pentagon. She heard the crash. She soon saw helicopters flying by her 14th floor window, so close you could see the pilots’ faces. I told her to get on I-95 and get home. She didn’t even make it one mile in four hours. She gave up and went back to her apartment.
My middle daughter was a freshman at UT. She heard about the hijackings. Her father happened to be at the Pentagon that day. She was so upset that her history teacher excused her from class. She was able to reach her father, and all was well. He was in an opposite “ring” of the Pentagon from the plane’s impact.
Because the situation was so unknown and volatile, my youngest daughter was in lockdown at her northern Virginia high school.
We lived about a mile (the way the crow flies) from the Potomac River in Woodbridge, Virginia. At all hours, it was normal to hear planes approaching and taking off from Reagan National Airport. We were on the flight path.
Suddenly, after 9:37 a.m. the sounds of commercial aircraft stopped. We heard new sounds coming from the skies. Military jets scrambled and regularly patrolled the Potomac River corridor. They were from everywhere – Andrews AFB (now called Joint Base Andrews), Langley AFB and bases in North Carolina and Pennsylvania. They were so close the house rumbled. It sounded like a war zone. Sometimes there were helicopters. This went on for about three weeks.
On 9-11 and for days afterward, the sky remained unusually blue and clear.
Melanie Staten is a public relations consultant with her husband, Vince.
A famous D.C. mural is coming down.
Ben’s Chili Bowl announced Wednesday that their famed mural, featured outside of the restaurant’s U Street location, will be replaced.
The mural, originally painted Aniekan Udofia in 2017, features icons like Barack and Michelle Obama, Muhammed Ali, Prince, Chuck Brown and News4’s Jim Vance.
Ben’s Chili Bowl says it’s being replaced due to weathering.
The original mural received over 30,000 votes on who should be featured. And, the restaurant is once again asking customers to vote on who they want to see on the new mural.
News4 asked customers Wednesday who they would want to see on the new mural.
“It hurts a little bit because it’s been there, I think kinda, you know, it tells a story for real. I think we can always update and add people, but I like the ones who are on there for sure,” D.C. resident Rasheed Shaw told News4.
“That definitely represents, you know, the community itself. Shout out to Jim Vance,” he said.
After undergoing renovations for the past year, the restaurant is set to reopen on May 1.
Ideas for the new mural can be submitted until May 10 on the restaurant’s website.
Washington
Pulitzer-winning Washington Post editor Dan Eggen found dead at 60 after being laid-off earlier this year
Veteran Washington Post editor Dan Eggen — a key architect of the paper’s political coverage who was laid off in a brutal round of cuts earlier this year — was found dead at his home in the nation’s capital on Tuesday. He was 60.
No foul play or violence were suspected in the death, local authorities told Eggen’s family, according to WaPo. The cause of death was pending an autopsy as of Wednesday morning.
Eggen spent nearly three decades at the paper, helping steer its reporting on the White House, Congress and presidential campaigns. He was on a team that won a 2002 Pulitzer Prize for investigating the plotters behind 9/11, going on to work on projects that won the most prestigious award in journalism in 2016, for reporting on Russian election interference, and in 2022, for exploring the previous year’s attack on the US Capitol.
A fixture of the newsroom’s most sensitive coverage, Eggen was “a sharp editor with a keen story sense,” the Post’s executive editor Matt Murray told staff.
“Dan was involved in hiring, editing and mentoring dozens of politics writers across the years,” he wrote, adding that Eggen’s “news muscle and instincts were integral to our coverage.”
At the time of his death, Eggen was set to start a new job at NOTUS, a recently launched, DC-based outlet that’s been scooping up laid-off WaPo staffers.
“We hired Dan to join us at NOTUS after some of the best reporters in DC told us he was the best editor they’d ever had,” the site’s editor in chief Tim Grieve wrote on X. “We were excited to have him here, and I think he was equally excited to be coming here. Deepest condolences to everyone who loved him.”
Josh Dawsey, a Wall Street Journal reporter who previously covered the White House for the Washington Post, recalled Eggen’s relentless work ethic. The late journalist “worked seven days a week, 14 hours a day” and was “incredibly dedicated, a wonderful line editor” who pushed reporters to improve, Dawsey told WaPo.
“I viewed him as one of the true beating hearts of the newsroom … Dan is one of those people who make the newspaper work,” he added.
Ashley Parker, a former White House reporter for the Washington Post who has since decamped to The Atlantic, remembered Eggen as a deeply collaborative editor who empowered his staff, saying he “was the rare editor who believed in his reporters” and “changed only 10 percent of your copy but made it 90 percent better.”
Eggen began his WaPo career as a metro reporter and covered the post-9/11 Justice Department before becoming an editor.
He is survived by two children from his ex-wife, journalist Stephanie Armour, and a sister, according to WaPo.
The Post has sought comment from local police.
Incidents like the one in 2023 along the Baltimore Beltway — a crash that killed six highway workers — are the reason why officials gathered to stress the need for better work zone safety during National Work Zone Awareness Week.
This week, officials, workers and residents are calling for safer roads as they say there is still more work to be done when it comes to safety.
“It’s about understanding that each of us has a role to play in the safety and protection of one another,” William Pines from the Maryland State Highway Administration said.
With an active construction site as the backdrop — at the interchange between Pennsylvania Avenue and Suitland Parkway — roadway workers spoke up.
“We are not just workers, we are people — real people. We are parents, siblings, friends and neighbors. So when you see us out there, please pay attention to that.” Dawn Hopkins with Flagger Force Traffic Control Services said.
Hopkins says she’s had to sound an alarm to get her crew out of dangerous situations.
“Please slow down, stay alert…and watch out for us in the workzones,” Hopkins added.
While the number of crashes in Maryland work zones in 2025 remains concerning, it is lower than in 2024. In 2025, there were:
- 1,148 work zone crashes
- 9 work zone deaths
- 449 injuries
In 2024, there were:
- 1,302 work zone crashes,
- 12 work zone deaths, and
- 492 injuries
“While citations are down, we still had 19 citations that were issues where the automated system recorded drivers traveling in excess of 130 miles an hour in work zones,” Pines said.
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore has proclaimed April 22 as “Go Orange Day” in Maryland, urging everyone to wear orange in support of highway worker safety.
A moment of silence for road workers who have been killed will be observed at noon this Friday.
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