Wright State grad spent 9/11 at president’s side

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SPRINGFIELD — When then Capt. Deborah Loewer first informed President George W. Bush and White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card that an airplane had struck one of the towers of New York’s World Trade Center, she could offer no details.

Because of that, the then director of the White House Situation Room added something she’d learned from her lengthy Naval career: “The first report is typically wrong.”

Still, something — maybe the tone of Senior Duty Officer Rob Hargis’ voice over the phone from Washington — made Loewer ask that a television be brought to the “hold room” next to where President Bush would be reading to children at Emma E. Booker Elementary School.

“We never had a television,” said Loewer, a graduate of Shawnee High School and Wright State University.

It was just one more thing to carry.

So at 9:02 a.m. on Sept. 11, 2001 — a minute after she had tuned in CNN — Loewer found herself watching what millions of other Americans watched: A second plane crashing into the other tower.

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