“Kuh, kuh, kuh.” It was a Friday, and staffers at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Atlanta headquarters were getting ready to pack up and head home for the weekend. They thought the steady pneumatic sounds they heard outside their windows were coming from some kind of road work.
“Why are they doing construction on a Friday afternoon, at nearly closing time?” wondered Dr. Daniel Jernigan, who was then director of the CDC’s National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases. His office was on the fifth floor of building 16, the closest to the street.
Another staffer, a doctor, heard the repetitive noise but tried to tune it out to focus on one last task before she met family waiting for her at a nearby restaurant. Finally, a colleague stood up and said loudly, “I think we should be concerned.”
They walked to a window in building 24, which had a view of the sidewalks below.
“Everyone who was walking around campus just immediately flung themselves on the ground,” said the doctor, who asked not to be named out of fear of repercussions. “So that’s how we knew.”
