The first time Susan Morrison drove past the Pentagon three weeks after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, she had to pull off the road.

“I was weeping so hard that I couldn’t drive, and I am not a weeper,” said Morrison, a journalism professor at Washington D.C.’s American University. “Looking at that gaping, smoking hole was unreal. All I could think was ‘How could this happen here?'”

Morrison, a former New York Times and Washington Post reporter, has covered the Pentagon for several years.

On the one-year anniversary of the attacks, many D.C. residents are still grappling with feelings of sorrow and disbelief. Yet the mood of the city is one of resilience, Morrison said.

“It is not so much somber and sad, but it is a serious day for the city,” said area computer consultant Emily Hawthorn.

District residents are marking the day in different ways. Some said they will keep their eyes on the news and observe a moment of silence.

“The city should recognize this anniversary, and a moment of silence is a good thing,” Hawthorn said. “But if we hide under our chairs, the terrorists will win. Living here just makes it so hard not to think about it.”

Hawthorn said she will exhibit her patriotism by wearing red, white and blue to work all week.

However, others said they would prefer to let the day pass with no recognition of its importance.

Events and memorials will be held throughout the district Wednesday, including an evening candlelight vigil at the Capitol’s Reflecting Pool and NBC’s “Concert for America” at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

Concert organizers say the event will feature appearances by Kelsey Grammer, James Earl Jones, Rudolph Giuliani, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy and Caroline Kennedy, along with the music of Chris Isaak and Alan Jackson. President Bush is expected to attend.

Numerous Sept. 11 exhibits ranging from Washington Post photographs to Library of Congress Web archives will be held throughout the district, event organizers said.

All D.C. public schools will immerse their students in observances of the terrorist attack. Every class will devote its specific area of study to 9-11, Morrison said. Morrison has chosen to keep her eighth-grade daughter home from school for the day.

“My daughter will probably expose herself to the coverage,” Morrison said, “but I want to be there with her to talk her through it.”

Another landmark event this week involves the completion of work on the Pentagon. Plans for reconstruction began almost immediately after American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the outer ring of the Pentagon a year ago, employees said.

The last remaining employees displaced by the crash moved back into their reconstructed offices Monday, achieving the goal set last year by W. Lee Evey, head of the Pentagon renovation program.

According to The Washington Post, Evey set Sept. 11, 2002, as the target goal for renovation to be complete – a feat many thought impossible.

“The Pentagon is back, it has been fixed,” Morrison said. “There’s no visual reminder of the attacks anymore like there is in New York City.”

However, a large memorial to those lost in the attack stands inside, employees said.

As for the future, D.C. residents are divided between those who worry something else will happen and those not wanting to hear any more about the attacks, Hawthorn said.

“There is the realization that [attacks] will come again,” Morrison said. “[Sept. 11] really has changed the rest of our lives.”

The city may have returned to a sense of normalcy, but it will never again be what it was on Sept. 10, 2001.