WASHINGTON — A year later, as the horror of Sept. 11 turns to reflection, Dennis Rehberg remembers the pickup truck.

In the panic and confusion after terrorists hit the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, police evacuated the Capitol and the House and Senate office buildings. The problem was that few people had any clue where to go, and Rehberg, a Republican congressman from Montana, found himself on the street.

“People’s imaginations were going wild,” said Rehberg, a cattle and goat rancher partial to cowboy hats. “It sounded like bombs were going off all over the city. F-16s were flying over. We had no communication. Nobody to call.”

Another congressman on his way to Capitol Police headquarters soon drove by in a pickup truck. Rehberg and a fellow first-term congressman, Rep. Butch Otter, R-Idaho, quickly jumped in the back.

“We’re from out West,” he explained. “We always feel better in a pickup anyway.”

The sneak attacks Sept. 11 and the anthrax that turned up in the mail a few weeks later left an emotional blow on the nation’s most symbolic city. For the people who live, work and visit, the terrorism is a reminder that the capital is always a target for the country’s enemies and the city’s armed guards, barricades and closed streets exist for a reason.

But with every new inconvenience, every extra layer of security, also comes the pride of looking at the Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial or Capitol and knowing that the nation has survived much worse and is still free.

Terrorism dented but did not destroy the district’s business and tourism. More than 18 million people visited last year, up 2.8 percent from the year before, according to the Washington, D.C. Convention and Tourism Corp. The inauguration of President Bush and the NBA All-Star game earlier in the year helped offset declines after Sept. 11.

But business travel fell 17 percent last year. The loss of higher-spending business and convention travelers outweighed the increase in visitors and led to a decline in overall visitor spending. Leisure travel increased by 29 percent in the fourth quarter, which could be attributed to people curious about damage at the Pentagon, patriotic about the country or concerned about friends or family members who live here.

An August survey from Penn, Schoen and Berland Associates of 700 leisure and business travelers found that 24 percent would avoid coming here, down from 31 percent in the month after the attacks. But about the same percentage of people also would avoid traveling to New York, a major sporting event or a popular theme park.

In the summer after one of the worst intelligence failures in America’s history, the newest attraction downtown is the International Spy Museum, a sleek homage to the craft of espionage. The exhibits — a lipstick pistol, a hollow coin to hide coded messages — have drawn crowds of 3,000 people a day since opening in July.

Nancy Hottenroth, who runs a nursing registry in Hermosa Beach, Calif., emerged from the museum gift shop with her four children and their spy souvenirs. Her son pulled out binoculars disguised as miniature orange soda cans and trained them on people on the sidewalk.

She had some misgivings about terrorism and the headache that is air travel but wanted her kids to see the capital. She reserved a suite instead of separate rooms for the children and drilled them with warnings about talking to strangers or wandering off alone.

Hottenroth did notice things had changed since her last visit, from the airline’s order to stay seated a half-hour before landing to amplified surveillance around the city’s landmarks.

“There is a lot more visible security,” she said. “I’m still not so sure how safe it really is.”

In the weeks and months after the attacks, people took pride in their government and their country. A Gallup poll in early October found that 84 percent approved of Congress’ job performance while a December poll found that 70 percent were satisfied with the direction of the country.

But poll numbers slipped as time passed and people adjusted to life, an unmistakable sign that things are returning to normal. A Gallup poll in early August found that 46 percent approved of Congress and 47 percent were satisfied with the state of the nation.

For many government workers, long stigmatized as faceless bureaucrats, the attacks deepened their commitment and gave their jobs a new degree of urgency.

Mike Dovilla, an aide to Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, worked next door to the Hart Senate Office Building suite where anthrax was discovered in the mail. Asked to leave one October afternoon, he did not return to his desk until January.

Dovilla, a naval reserve officer, had no reservations about going back into the building.

“It was almost more surreal than anything,” he said. “Everything was very clean. It had the faint smell of chlorine.”

After the Oklahoma City bombing, more concrete barriers were added and street access was limited around the Capitol and the White House to prevent truck bombs. Access to the Capitol itself was tightened after a deranged gunman stormed the building in 1998 and killed two police officers.

After Sept. 11, police became much more vigilant about checking staff and press identification and lobbyists and other visitors were barred from the Capitol without an appointment or escort.

Rehberg and other congressional members have been issued BlackBerrys (wireless communication devices), to communicate in case of emergency and escape hoods that allow wearers to leave a contaminated area unscathed have been distributed to deal with a biological or chemical release. Each congressional office also has selected an emergency coordinator to work with Capitol Police on evacuation routes in the event of an attack or disaster.

Mail sent to Congress is screened at a temporary location in New Jersey because anthrax contamination still has the city’s main mail processing center under quarantine. Mail clerks across the city now routinely handle mail wearing latex gloves.