COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa (AP) – An Iowa lawmaker who was a White House employee on Sept. 11, 2001, vividly recalls the chaos in Washington the day airplanes were used as weapons. The Council Bluffs Daily Nonpareil reports Mary Ann Hanusa recalls vividly the day 14 years ago Friday how shaken she was evacuating her office where she was President George W. Bush’s personal correspondence director.

She recalls thinking as she ran from the White House after the Pentagon attack that “maybe this is how I’m doing to die.” The Iowa House member serving her third term recalls the traffic gridlock and how within two hours Washington was like a ghost town and how President Bush promised that night the U.S. government would be open for business the next day. And she says: we were.