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A former general foreman for the project, Mickey Bell, was in the parking lot next to the construction trailer when the plane hit, clipping a generator and knocking him off his feet.

"There was a helipad there, so were used to hearing aircraft come in and land all day long and he didnt think much of it," said Outside Superintendent Skip McConkey. "Next thing Mickey knows, hes on the ground. The plane was tilting at an angle. If it wasnt, it would have cut his head off." Both McConkey and Bell are Local 26 members employed by Singleton Electric Company.

Although Bell doesnt remember what happened after the plane hit, he was not seriously hurt. No IBEW members died in the subsequent explosion. But nearly 200 people perished: 59 plane passengers and crew and 125 people at work in the three corridors the plane ripped through. Security camera photos trained on the building showed images of orange balls of flames shooting high into the sky. The fact that more people were not killed at the Pentagon is due in part to the renovation project underway on 9/11 that had forced many people out of their offices in the area the plane hit. Another factor was that much of the work already done had reinforced the structure with extra steel, blast-resistant windows and Kevlar.

IBEW member Greg Cobaugh (left) and others watch as the Pentagon burned on September 11, 2001, from a hill at Arlington National Cemetary.

Local 26 member Greg Cobaugh, general foreman, said despite the fire, the clouds of dust and the general pandemonium, he rounded up the IBEW crew inside the building that day. Rescue personnel were pushing them and other workers away from the building, but they were ordered not to leave. They walked to nearby Arlington National Cemetery where they climbed a hill to look down on the scene, watching as a section of the building collapsed. They volunteered to help with the rescue effort but non-military and non-emergency crews were eventually told to go home.

Local 26 members were an integral part of the construction team that performed the incredible feat of finishing most of the repair work before the one-year anniversary of the attack. This month, the project will be complete. In the year between September 11, 2001, and September 11, 2002, more than 100 IBEW members participated in the reconstruction of the Pentagon, a monumental effort dubbed "Project Phoenix." They were among the first to enter the still-smoldering structure to erect temporary wiring for the rescue effort and they remain key to renovation efforts that are continuing.

Local 26 members shed light on search and rescue efforts.

There is nothing new about the association between Local 26 and the Pentagon, the giant nerve center of the nations defense. IBEW members helped build the Pentagon 60 years ago, when the five-sided colossus of an office building went up in 16 months.

"It used to tickle me going down to the local hall and seeing pictures of the guys who built it," said McConkey, a 34-year member of Local 26. "And now here we are rebuilding it."

Generations later, the sense of urgency and passion for the job is back, as members put in 20-hour days seven days a week, ever conscious of the huge digital clock affixed to the buildings exterior. The clock ticked the days, hours and minutes backwards from the one-year anniversary of the crash.

Local 26 member Jim Polk, job superintendent, said the frenzied atmosphere on the site in the weeks after the attack continued day and night, fed by the fast food trailers churning out burgers and fries and amenities like free boots and other equipment. "They gave you anything you could imagine. They just didnt want you to leave."

Before the reconstruction came the demolition, which occurred at such a rapid pace they could not get the dumpsters full of debris out of the wayparticularly because the FBI had to sift through some of it for clues. But that did not stop the demo work. "The deal was, you better stay ahead of the crusher because they werent going to stop," Polk said. "The crushing went on 24 hours a day."

By December came the rebuilding portion of the massive effort. Called Project Phoenix for the Greek myth about a bird rising from the ashes, workers for the next 10 months would reconstruct the five floors and three rings destroyed. The Pentagon Renovation web site said the project is estimated to cost upwards of $700 million to recover the 400,000 square feet damaged by the attack.

At peak construction, up to 1,000 workers were on the site. The IBEW was represented by members of Local 26 working for Singleton, Universal Wiring Systems and Dynalectric. Travelers from North Carolina, Georgia, Virginia and Pennsylvania came for the project.

"Its a testament to our guys and our local," McConkey said. "We had travelers from all over the country. They just wanted to work on the Pentagon. It was a remarkable job."

General Foreman Cobaugh said problems common to large projects such as rivalries among contractors had no place at the Pentagon. "It was really just one team," he said. "Everybody helped each other out."

Polk, job superintendent, said the long shifts exhausted the workers but complaints were few. "We worked a ton of hours out here," he said. "You got to the point where you cant stand it anymore. And then you remember why youre here."

Following a morning ceremony on September 11, 2002, attended by President George W. Bush and family members of victims, came a second ceremony honoring construction workers, "the hard-hat patriots of the Phoenix Project," as Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called them.

It requires a very close look at the Pentagons limestone exterior to find evidence of the new faade, which is a slightly different light gray color than the rest of the building. But a black stone stands out as a solemn reminder of the tragedy. Inside in the rebuilt section of the building is a memorial "Americas Heroes," inscribed with the names of the victims. A new chapel is nearby. Memorials and reminders of 9/11 are impossible to escape in the Pentagon. Deeper inside the building, affixed to one wall is a quotation by President Bush from the anniversary service: "Terrorists can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings but they cannot touch the foundation of America." Signatures of hundreds of construction workers fill the space around the type.

Although most of the structural work is done inside, outside the Pentagon the scene still resembles a construction site, with trailers dotting the parking lot, woodchips and rocks underfoot and backhoes criss-crossing the site. At each entrance, security is tighter than ever.

Because of the Pentagons proximity to the Washingtons National Airport, workers have again become accustomed to planes flying low overhead. The military flyovers standard in funerals at Arlington National Cemetery give some workers a start.

"Every time they have a flyover, it makes you kind of nervous," Polk said. "They try to warn us."

Project Phoenix will wrap up this month but renovation work will continue into 2010.