The tragic events of Sept. 11, 2001, are seared in Americans' memories. POLITICO asked a few prominent U.S. figures to share their recollections of that day.

Michael Bloomberg

Mayor, New York City

Then a billionaire businessman running for the New York City GOP mayoral nomination, Bloomberg was on a post-primary day vote stroll to his campaign headquarters with New York Daily News columnist Michael Daly.

"One of the things we talked about was, it was a crisp, clear fall day. Then I went inside, had a cup of coffee and started reading the newspapers. And somebody said, 'A small plane had hit the World Trade Center,'" Bloomberg said.

Like everyone else, Bloomberg, a licensed pilot, was initially mystified when he saw the carnage on TV. "I looked up, and you could see the gash across the building from one end to another. And I said, 'That's not a small plane, that's got to be an airliner.' Did I think that it was deliberate, terrorism? No, nor did anybody else."

But when a second plane hit the World Trade Center, the mystery ended. "A few minutes later, a second plane - obviously something was going on."

Rep. Jerry Nadler

(D-N.Y.)

Immediately after Nadler saw the burning World Trade Center - right in his district - on television from his Washington hotel room, he knew he had to get home. Fast.

He and his wife, Joyce, rushed to Union Station to catch the next train for New York City. The 10 a.m. shuttle carried only the couple and a handful of camera crews - and once it hit Baltimore, the train stopped.

"The train wasn't going any further," Nadler said. "I tried to get ahold of people by telephone. I tried to find my son, who was in school in New York. I couldn't get through to him, anyone in New York, anyone in Washington."

They began moving again toward Philadelphia, and there security forced everyone off the train once more. Security personnel were scanning train tracks for explosives.

When the train finally rolled into Manhattan at 6 p.m., Nadler emerged from Penn Station to a scene that he likened to the movie "On the Beach," in which a nuclear war demolishes the northern hemisphere.

"There was nothing moving," Nadler said. "No people, no pedestrians, no cars, no bus, no nothing, no noise. ... It was a very eerie feeling."

Ann Compton

White House correspondent, ABC News

Compton knew something was seriously wrong when she saw White House chief of staff Andy Card approach President George W. Bush in the middle of an event with second-graders in a Sarasota, Fla., classroom. "Nobody ever interrupts the president like that," she thought. Card later remembered whispering, "A second plane hit the second tower. America is under attack." 

"I made a sign of an airplane with my hands to Andy Card, who nodded and put up two fingers," Compton recalled. After Bush delivered an education speech without mentioning the crisis, he and the press returned to Air Force One, which flew to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana and refueled. 

There, much of the usual press pool was left behind on the tarmac. Among those journalists ditched: Jay Carney, then of Time magazine and now press secretary to President Barack Obama. 

"We took off very fast, and they wouldn't tell us where we were going. We had F-16s off the wing. ... I thought, 'The president has no place to go. He has to run.' This was the [nuclear] doomsday scenario unfolding," Compton said. 

Dennis Hastert

Then-House speaker (R-Ill.)

Hastert got to the television in his Capitol office just in time to see the second plane hit the World Trade Center. He immediately tried to call Vice President Dick Cheney on a secure phone. But Cheney was unreachable. 

And then Hastert saw the smoke. It was curling around the Washington Monument. At that moment, he made a decision: The Capitol was shutting down. 

"So next thing I knew, I was in a tunnel between the Capitol and the Rayburn building and stuck in the back of a Chevy Suburban," Hastert recalled. "I'm shooting out of there, and I'm going across south of Washington heading for Andrews Air Force Base." When he got to Andrews, he reached Cheney, who told him, "You're going to an undisclosed location for the day, and we'll be in touch." 

"Subsequently, I was on a helicopter to an undisclosed location, going across Washington - nothing on the streets," Hastert said. He continued, "I went from a peace-time speaker - the president went from a peace-time president, worried about transportation and education and health care and all those other things we do - to a wartime speaker. Basically, the president and I made a pact that we weren't going to let this thing happen again."

Rep. Peter King

(R-N.Y.)

The big event King had planned that day was a stop at the White House barbecue with his wife, Rosemary. 

But as the Long Island congressman awaited her arrival in Washington, King got a panicked phone call from his daughter. Her husband's office windows directly faced the World Trade Center, where an airplane had slammed into the North Tower seconds before.

At first, King thought it was an accident. Then, as he watched the second plane hit the tower live on television, he had no doubt that it was an act of terror.

"It didn't really hit me as to how bad it was going to be ... it makes no sense now," he recalled. "During the afternoon, I started getting phone calls from friends of mine saying this guy was killed, that guy was killed. That's when it started to hit home."

Rep. Carolyn Maloney

(D-N.Y.)

When Maloney finally arrived in Manhattan after a day of jammed traffic on the New Jersey Turnpike, she just wanted to see the city's subway system. 

"I had this compelling urge ... since the whole world had been turned upside down," she recalled. "Was there anything normal?" 

She walked several blocks south from her Upper East Side brownstone - along the way seeing grieving strangers hugging one another. She arrived at the 86th Street station and saw trains were moving - giving her a spark of normalcy in a world that the congresswoman knew had completely changed. 

"My daughter said to me, 'I feel like Alice in Wonderland. You've gone through the looking glass, and nothing will ever be the same again,'" Maloney said. 

The next day, she made her way to ground zero. She saw piles of empty shoes - vacated by their owners as they ran to escape the burning towers - and a skull among the shattered glass and pulverized concrete. 

"No picture or story will capture ... how quiet it was," she said. "It was very, very reverent, almost holy and quiet."

Sen. Lindsey Graham

(R-S.C.)
Graham, then a member of the House, was at his Capitol Hill home when an aide called to ask whether he'd heard about the first plane crashing into the World Trade Center. "I was watching TV and see the second plane" hit, the senator said.

"Nobody knew what to do, where to go," Graham remembered. "They all came to my house. People were running out of the Capitol building to get away."

"I'll never forget that night. We gathered on the steps across the street at the Longworth building to go over to the Capitol," Graham said. "There was not a car on the road, not a plane in the sky, not a person on the street at all. ... It really looked like the 'Day After' movie."

"Ten years later, people understand the threat better," Graham said. "When people leave the building, they know where to go. We have a general game plan. We're a different nation. It's burned into our psyche, the threat we face."

Janet Napolitano
Secretary of Homeland Security
Arizona's attorney general on Sept. 11, 2001, Napolitano recalls trying to figure out how her state should respond - and Washington not being much help.

"I was at home getting ready for work when I saw the news. I immediately called the governor to discuss Arizona's authorities with respect to the National Guard and to plan for the protection of the state's critical infrastructure," Napolitano said. "We looked to the federal government for guidance and procedures for a national disaster like this. Yet there was little information amid the chaos and confusion."

Now, Napolitano oversees a new department born from Sept. 11 and tasked with getting local governments in sync with federal efforts.

"That day 10 years ago changed us as Americans and as people. It brought our society together with a remarkable feeling of unity," she said. "Ultimately, our security is a shared responsibility. ... This Sept. 11, we remember those we lost, and we celebrate their lives by doing everything in our power - as a government and as a society - to build on the lessons we have learned, and to make ourselves - and our homeland - more resilient and secure, one hometown at a time."

George Pataki
Then-governor of New York
When it became clear that New York City was under attack Sept. 11, Pataki fought his security detail's efforts to squire him out of the city.

"Shortly after the towers fell, we headed downtown to try and assess the situation and at the same time reassure New Yorkers. What I found weren't New Yorkers running from the scene but running toward the scene. I rounded one corner to find hundreds of people lined up to give blood," he said. "I went downtown to try and reassure New Yorkers - instead they reassured me."

Ten years on, Pataki finds himself longing for the brief period of national unity that followed the attacks.

"We weren't Democrats or Republicans, black or white, rich or poor. We were all Americans," he said. "I hope that we can rekindle that spirit of unity and purpose to tackle the tremendous challenges we face today."

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