On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, classrooms across the Washington, D.C., region were just beginning their day when the news of the terrorist attacks started to spread. Nearly 25 years later, memories that fateful morning remain vivid for some McLean faculty members.

Interim assistant school administrator Corey Bowerman was a biology teacher at West Potomac High School when the attack unfolded. 

“There was some commotion in the hallway and a colleague of mine said, ‘Have you seen the news? Have you seen what’s going on?’” Bowerman said. 

He stepped into the teachers’ lounge and turned on the television. 

“[I saw that] the first tower was already in flames,” Bowerman said. “And while I was watching it, you saw the very surreal picture of the second plane coming around with an explosion and hitting the second tower–and I saw that live.”

The rest of the school day was very stressful for Bowerman as parents arrived to collect their children. 

“Parents just wanted their kids; we were literally running back and forth finding out where kids were and escorting them out of school,” Bowerman said.

The attack on the Pentagon made the tragedy personal for students and staff. 

“During my time at the school, I was a coach of the track team, and two of my track athletes went and rode to the Pentagon to see the crash but couldn’t leave because of the security measures there,” Bowerman said. “One of my track athletes that I was coaching at the time—her dad was in the Pentagon—he was one of the people who lost his life there.”

Reaching loved ones proved difficult as phone networks jammed. 

“Initially, it was hard to get through,” Bowerman said. “Cell lines are a little different now, but with the technology back then, it was a long time of trying to actually be able to get a call out.”

Social studies teacher Steven Sudik was just 5 years old on 9/11. 

“I was actually in kindergarten at the time,” Sudik said. “I lived in Alexandria. I remember being dismissed early from school, going home and being around my parents who were watching the news, obviously not fully comprehending what was happening as a 5-year-old.”

Sudik said it took years before he truly understood what had occurred. 

“I feel like I fully kind of started to learn about 9/11 in the years after, going up through elementary school,” Sudik said. “Now, when the day comes up, as we have done for the last 24 years at this point, we take this day, especially in schools, to remember what happened and talk about it.”

Now a teacher himself, Sudik makes a point to honor that tradition. 

“I definitely try to take the time to talk about it with all my classes, regardless of topic,” Sudik said. “Our livelihoods, our way of life has completely changed here in the United States, so I think it’s important to understand why we have the systems in place that we have now for security and safety, and how the American government approaches politics, both pre and post-9/11. There are implications for that.”

Science teacher Eriny Youssef was three months pregnant when she boarded a flight out of Newark, New Jersey, on the morning of 9/11. 

“The airport was very empty,” Youssef said. “People were watching TV, and then every board suddenly showed ‘canceled’ on every flight.”

While being stranded in the airport for days, she found herself the focus of several federal investigators. 

“Two FBI agents came up behind me and flashed their badge,” Youssef said. “They asked me where I was going, who bought my tickets and whether or not I knew the men sitting next to me. [Both of the terrorists’ last names were Mohammed, and my last name is Youssef.”

Youssef said that she had switched seats with the men before takeoff, their brief contact prompting intense questioning from investigators. 

“I kept telling them ‘I don’t know these people,’” she said. “But they kept asking me the same questions over and over.”

Even after she was cleared, the scrutiny continued. 

“Everywhere I went in the airport, they were following me,” Youssef said. “At one point I went into a café with glass doors and watched them panic when they couldn’t find me. I was laughing, but inside I was terrified.”

The suspicion surrounding her, however, lingered well beyond just that week.

“Exactly a year later, in Canada, airport security kept me there for an hour,” Youssef said. “In Egypt, they sent the police and they interrogated my aunt. My sister was leaving for the U.S., so she quickly went back there herself.”

Youssef believes her Middle Eastern background often changes the way strangers view her. 

“When they look at me, they think I am one of a few things: Hispanic, Italian or Russian,” Youssef said. “But as soon as they hear I’m Egyptian, their whole entire demeanor changes.”

That prejudice has come about even in schools. 

“I once caught a past teacher I worked with jokingly calling me a terrorist,” Youssef said. “He said it in a way like he thought it was a joke, but I was angry. That’s nothing to joke about.”

More than two decades later, she still wonders if her name will raise alarms when she travels. 

“I don’t know what is going to happen if I go back to Egypt,” Youssef said. “It has been more than 20 years, so I have no idea if they will still be flagged.”

English teacher Joy Korones remembers an ordinary, sunny Tuesday that changed in an instant. 

“I was in a playground with my infant daughter after dropping my son at kindergarten,” Korones said. “Someone at the post office mentioned a building got hit, but I didn’t think much of it and we didn’t have cell phones then; it was all through word of mouth.”

As neighbors traded scraps of information, the fear grew.

 “Six of us walked back to a friend’s house and turned on the TV just in time to see one of the towers falling,” Korones said. “It was distressing, and there were rumors everywhere about the Pentagon and about D.C. shutting down. Friends’ husbands who worked in the city were saying they couldn’t get out.”

Korones remembers the frantic ride to pick up her son once schools began early dismissal. 

“I called the school and they said, ‘Everyone’s picking their kids up.’ We stayed home for three or four days, barely leaving our neighborhood park,” Korones said.

Even decades later, the details remain clear. 

“It doesn’t feel like 24 years,” Korones said. “It feels like yesterday—I don’t think any of us look at a clear blue sky the same way.”

Each September, when schools pause to remember the attacks, Korones reflects on how the tragedy stands apart from others. 

“I was thinking about why this event still gets so much attention when we’ve had other losses, like school shootings,” Korones said. “I think it’s because so many of us were there and present. It was such a singular event, so scary, and our world has never been the same.”