1:00 p.m. September 11, 2001: Temporary Air Force Operations Center Set Up at Bolling Air Force Base

A temporary Air Force Operations Center is established at Bolling Air Force Base in Washington, DC, after the original Operations Center at the Pentagon had to be evacuated due to smoke from the burning building coming in. [CNN, 10/10/2001; Goldberg et al., 2007, pp. 136; Air Force Magazine, 9/2011 ] Air Force personnel had been responding to the terrorist attacks in the Operations Center in the basement of the Pentagon. The Air Force’s Crisis Action Team (CAT) was activated in response to the attacks in New York and carried out its activities there (see (9:00 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [Dover Post, 9/19/2001; Syracuse University Magazine, 12/2001] Senior officials, including General John Jumper, the Air Force chief of staff, and James Roche, the secretary of the Air Force, arrived at the Operations Center after the Pentagon was hit and assisted the Air Force’s response to the attacks (see After 9:37 a.m. September 11, 2001). [CNN, 10/10/2001; Lompoc Record, 9/11/2003; Goldberg et al., 2007, pp. 136] But as the morning went on, thick smoke from the burning building started coming into the Operations Center and became a major problem. Air Force officials therefore decided to set up a temporary Operations Center at Bolling Air Force Base, just across the Potomac River from the Pentagon. At 12:20 p.m., Air Force leaders and assistants left the Operations Center at the Pentagon, and were flown by helicopter to the replacement facility. Member of the CAT also relocated to the new facility, which is functioning by 1:00 p.m. At the new Operations Center, Air Force Surgeon General Paul Carlton Jr. briefs Roche and Jumper on what medical assistance the Air Force might provide to help the emergency response efforts in New York and the Washington area. The two men approve his plan to send medical personnel and equipment to McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey, to support the emergency response efforts in New York as required. By 3:00 a.m. on September 12, conditions at the Pentagon will have improved sufficiently for operational command to be moved back to the Air Force’s original Operations Center, and that center will be fully operational again at 5:30 a.m. [Prospectus, 9/2006, pp. 3-6 ; Goldberg et al., 2007, pp. 117, 136; Air Force Magazine, 9/2011 ]