9:30 a.m.-9:33 a.m. September 11, 2001: Secret Service Prepares to Evacuate President Bush from the School

Secret Service agents with President Bush in Sarasota, Florida, prepare to evacuate Bush and his entourage from the Emma E. Booker Elementary School. [BBC, 9/1/2002; Studies in Intelligence, 9/2006 ] Bush is currently delivering a brief statement to the nation from the school library (see 9:30 a.m. September 11, 2001). [White House, 9/11/2001; Bohn, 2015, pp. 215] Secret Service agents tell members of his entourage in the staff area that the president will be leaving the school and heading to Air Force One as soon as he has finished giving his statement. They tell the staffers to take their places in the motorcade “as quickly as possible” and add, with some emphasis, that the motorcade will “wait for no one” once Bush’s limousine has left. [Studies in Intelligence, 9/2006 ; Morell and Harlow, 2015, pp. 50] Meanwhile, White House assistant press secretary Gordon Johndroe lets members of the press at the school know that Bush is about to leave. “We’re going to have to run to the motorcade,” he says. [Politico Magazine, 9/9/2016] A Secret Service agent runs out of the school and announces, “We’re under terrorist attack, we have to go now,” Officer Kevin Dowd of the Sarasota Police Department will later recall. [BBC, 9/1/2002] According to Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Herman, a senior presidential communications officer who is at the school with Bush, there are indications around this time that the president and his plane could be targeted by the terrorists. “There was some question at the time that Air Force One and the president were a target as well,” he will say, adding, “Therefore, we evacuated the president.” [Marist Magazine, 10/2002] Bush and his entourage will leave the school at around 9:35 a.m. and be driven to Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport (see (9:34 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [Daily Telegraph, 12/16/2001; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 39]