'Run for your life': Former White House staffer from Minnesota reflects on 25th anniversary of 9/11

(FOX 9) - A White House staffer on the morning the world changed — and the Minnesotan who lived it is still carrying that day with him 25 years later.

Three days before 9/11

Tim Stout's connection to that day goes back even further than the morning itself. Just three days before Sept. 11, he was standing at the top of the World Trade Center at Windows on the World with a friend.

"I distinctly remember wrapping on the glass, and it felt like bank teller glass. And I turned to my friend, I said, 'this is like, indestructible,'" said Tim Stout, who has served as Chief of Staff in the Hennepin County Sheriff's Office for years. "And three days later, it was rubble. And so that was just an unbelievable moment when I sort of understood the magnitude of this."

Stout's path to Washington began after he graduated with a political science degree from the University of Minnesota. He took an internship on Capitol Hill working for U.S. Sen. Rod Grams of Minnesota, and what he thought would be a year in D.C. turned into 16. When Grams lost his seat, Stout was offered an unpaid internship at the White House Office of Presidential Personnel — the office responsible for hiring new presidential appointees — and he took it.

The morning of Sept. 11

On the morning of the attacks, Stout arrived at the White House early, around 7:30 a.m., taking the Metro and walking through the gates to his office in the Old Executive Office Building, which sits within the White House complex.

"At about 8:47, I looked on the TV, and it showed that a plane had gone into the World Trade Center," Stout said. "Didn't know the magnitude, thought maybe it was a small plane. And then really understood when the second tower was hit."

When the Pentagon was struck, the reality of what was happening hit differently. From just outside his office, Stout could look across the South Lawn, past the Potomac River, and see the smoke and flames rising from the Pentagon. Then a Secret Service agent burst in.

"Run for your life," Stout recalled the agent saying as Flight 93 was then thought to be headed to Washington. "And that's when I knew this was serious. And I remember the women taking off their high heels, and they were strewn across the North Lawn so they could run faster."

"That is a moment I will never forget and we ran," he continued.

After evacuating the complex, Stout and his colleagues got into a car and spent hours trying to leave D.C. Traffic was gridlocked as people rushed to cross bridges into Virginia and Maryland. Cell towers were unreliable, and he couldn't reach his now-wife, who was working on Capitol Hill, or his parents back in Stillwater. He managed to get one call through to a friend, who spread the word that he was safe and evacuating. He spent the rest of the day at his boss's house watching events unfold, then took the Metro back that night to an eerily empty Union Station, with Capitol Police standing guard with machine guns and jet fighters visible in the skies above.

Building what came next

Shortly after the attacks, Stout joined the newly created Office of Homeland Security when former Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge was asked to lead it. The mandate was to build what would become the Department of Homeland Security, an agency that did not exist before Sept. 11.

"My children don't know life without a TSA. That did not exist before 9/11," Stout said. "The Coast Guard was part of the Department of Transportation. The Secret Service was part of the Department of the Treasury. Those are now all part of this massive Department of Homeland Security."

After the department was formally created in 2003, Stout joined Secretary Ridge's front office and was assigned classified work focused on upgrading the safety and security of government facilities outside of Washington — work tied to ensuring continuity of operations and continuity of government, including lines of succession. He described many of those facilities as having been mothballed for years, originally built with thermonuclear threats in mind, and said there was significant work to do to prepare them for the new realities of terrorism, including threats involving planes, anthrax and chemical warfare. He spent roughly a year and a half helping put the department together, working alongside partners on Capitol Hill in what he described as a genuinely bipartisan effort.

"I worked as many hours as I could, and it didn't feel like work," Stout said. "I mean, I felt like I was part of something that will be judged by history a generation from now. And there is a great sense of satisfaction and pride when I look back at those years."

What the anniversary means now

Now, 25 years later, Stout still keeps a piece of granite from the Pentagon's foundation — removed during the rebuilding — in a garden at his home as a daily reminder. White House staff who were present on Sept. 11 were also given a commission by President Bush recognizing their service that day, something Stout said is very dear to him.

"I get a little emotional, it's still there, right?" Stout said. "I think about it, I look at the photos, I think of my friends, of people that we lost. It's always a little bit tough, just to kind of get through it and understand that a lot of people it's just another normal day. But for me, it changed everything in my life, you know? What I do now. Where I lived, what I did. It just. On September 10th, I had no idea that I would be doing any of these types of things, and it just completely changed the trajectory of my life."

He still has a group text with the people he ran with that day, and they stay in touch every Sept. 11. He said his own children have little memory of the attacks and only know about them from school, which is part of why he wanted to speak out.

"It's always there with me," Stout said. "The anniversary especially highlights it, but then 25 years of thinking of a quarter-century of where I was and what it was like, but also how important it is to tell the story, to keep reminding people that we went through this difficult period and a lot of great Americans stepped up to get through that time. And that's a wonderful testament to the American people."

September 11Washington, D.C.