ATLANTA — On January 6, 2021 Rep. Carolyn Bourdeaux (D - Suwanee) was locked in her office on Capitol Hill along with members of her staff.
They remained quiet. The lights were turned off. A TV was on but muted so they could monitor the escalating violence nearby as rioters first gathered outside the Capitol Building and then stormed inside.
"It was one of those things where you're behind locked doors and every footstep in the hall makes you nervous," Bourdeaux said during an interview with 11Alive Wednesday.
Bourdeaux said as she remained locked in her office she was in communication with other lawmakers scattered across the Hill through text groups.
"Members were texting what they were experiencing," she recalled. "So we were sitting there as people were saying there is tear gas in the rotunda, shots were fired, you know all of that. It was pretty terrifying because we were so close to it. You were talking to people who were under their desks at that particular moment through these texts."
During the insurrection, Bourdeaux and her staff didn't know if rioters would come to their office door. They're relieved no one ever did.
She said her colleagues trapped in the House Gallery, which overlooks the floor of the House Chamber, weren't as lucky.
"That was really rough," she said. "They were up there when Ashli Babbitt was shot, they heard people pounding on the doors trying to get in and a lot of them had some post-traumatic situations that they have really had to deal with."
Bourdeaux and her fellow freshman representatives were only sworn in two days before rioters took over the Capitol Building.
Before the violence broke out, Bourdeaux and her colleagues were focused on one task following a heated election. They were attempting to certify the presidential election results ahead of the inauguration of Joe Biden as the 46 U.S. President.
"To see this kind of devolve into the kind of rioting and into the violence, really into an active effort to overturn the results of a free and fair election was really disturbing," she said.
Once the attack was over though, Bourdeaux and her colleagues left their offices and other hiding places, walked past the damage, and finished the work they started hours earlier.
"It was very important that we certified the election that night and show that we were not going to back down in the face of that kind of violence," she said. "I felt an extraordinary sense of purpose."
Reflecting a year later, Bourdeaux hopes January 6 can be used as a lesson to teach about how a democracy should be run and election results should be accepted.
"You really cannot take democracy for granted. It takes everyone buying into the concept, you go and push that button, your vote is counted and it is counted fairly," she said. "I know there are people that think that didn't happen. Of course, there were lots and lots of efforts to review the vote, to reassure everybody that it was in fact fair. At that point, you have to accept the results of the election and go on. Our democracy functions because people of good faith make it work. I hope that kind of idea, that it all depends on ethics, it all depends on all of us agreeing to this concept, I hope that kind of idea will be taught and that democracy is fragile. All of us have to be engaged to make sure that it functions and we hand it off stronger to the next generation."