Dr. Susan Monarez

Everyone was on lockdown or being, you know, being put in, you know, shelter in place or go to the conference rooms and

trying to get ahold of everyone.

Yeah.

That was just, God, that was so hard.

And then, you know, to find out that, that the police officer, um, officer Rose had been killed and, you know, there was, um, just the daycare center was right there.

And there were so many CDC employees who were trying to get to their kids.

Um, you know, some of whom were trapped under gunfire and being pulled to safety into the, into the, um, security officer, um, offices up there.

And,

So what went from this extraordinary feeling of like, we're going to do some of the most amazing work, to just knowing that almost 200 rounds were shattered across the flagship campus of the CDC in my building.

My office suite was just riddled in bullet holes.

I tried to get down there.

you know, I thought about, should I just get on a plane and get right back down there?

But with law enforcement security, you know, I didn't get down there for another, you know, 36 hours.

I was down there on Sunday night and then walking the buildings the next Monday.

And, and, you know, I was on the, you know, we had, we had conference calls with the staff almost immediately the next morning.

You know, we said we were talking to them all night.

I finally stopped talking to people at around midnight and then, you know, got up around three or four o'clock to try to figure out what's happening in law enforcement and then calls and calls and calls and video conferences.

And then,

back down there when I walked through the buildings, um, that following Monday and just saw the bullet holes, the bullets in the floor and the ceiling and the shattered glass.

And just, it was, it was, it was such a, just, I can't even describe what that was like.