As bad as the outcome was, it was far short of the terrorist goal of reducing the twin towers to a pile of rubble containing the grave of thousands. .
About an hour after planes hit the World Trade Center, a plane crashes into the Pentagon, and parts of it collapsed. Smoke and flames rose over the Pentagon at about 10 a.m. after a suspected terrorist crashed a commercial airliner into the side of the building. Firefighters tried to battle the flames from this crash on September 11. The building was evacuated, as were other federal buildings in the Capitol, including the White House. The Pentagon's workday population is about 24,000. The Pentagon, headquarters of the Department of Defense, is one of the world's largest office buildings. It is twice the size of the Merchandise Mart in Chicago, and has three times the floor space of the Empire State Building in New York. The National Capitol could fit into any one of the five wedge-shaped sections. There are very few people throughout the United States who do not have some knowledge of the Pentagon. Many have followed news stories that come from the defense establishment housed in this building. However, relatively few people have had the opportunity to visit the Pentagon (Richardson, 5C).The Pentagon is the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense in Washington, DC. It consists of five concentric pentagons of corridors and offices, with the rings labeled "A" through "E." These rings are interconnected and enable employees to walk to other sections without ever going outside. The area of work covers the outer three rings of the Pentagon (E, D, and C) between Corridors 4 and 5. According to Fred Holliday, approximately 400,000 square feet of space required complete structural demolition and reconstruction. Half of this area rests in the newly renovated Wedge 1 section of the Pentagon and the other half falls in the un-renovated Wedge 2.
