ABC News
)Tension filled the air.
The streets leading towards the Capitol had an eerie emptiness about them, yet sirens drowned out the silence in every direction I turned.
No-one was out, except those attending the march on Congress.
Our journey there was chaotic.
We were forced to pull off the road several times, to make way for large convoys of SWAT and police vehicles screaming past.
They were scrambling to make their way to Congress, but they were too late, the building's defences had already been breached.
We got to a point where we'd hit too many roadblocks.
It was time to jump out and continue on foot.
As we turned up Pennsylvania Avenue, the Capitol dome, the very symbol of American democracy, stared down stoically on the masses.
ABC News: Kathryn Diss
)I was trying to juggle carrying a tripod and microphone while also snapping pictures on my phone, which just wouldn't stop ringing.
News Breakfast wanted me live on air as soon as we could get a signal up.
My colleague Greg Jennett fed the beast, as we say, from the bureau studio while we searched for a signal.
The live unit, which files via the phone network, was strapped to the ABC cameraman's back.
While capturing a few shots as we walked towards the dome, I logged us in and monitored the signal strength.
As we approached the massive crowd that had invaded and completely occupied the Capitol Hill grounds, our signal completely dropped out.
We were forced to retreat and find a position further down Pennsylvania Avenue.
But there was still plenty to describe and capture.
That was the start of six hours of coverage amid a vast and fast-moving crowd.
We scrambled to gather vision and interviews to grasp the gravity of the moment in between live crosses.
At one point, we went live for 20 minutes, as police pushed us and the angry mob off the Capitol Hill grounds.
It was tricky in the dark navigating multiple obstacles and making sure we didn't trip over.
As I headed into the office that day, I was already exhausted from a 1am return flight from Georgia, where I'd just covered the Senate run-off elections.
But adrenaline took no time to kick in.
Any hint of weariness, disappeared.
The bureau had spent most of the year preparing for this very moment, when tensions boiled over.
We just didn't know when or where it would be.
Warning: video contains graphic language
Even so, I still couldn't believe my eyes to see thousands of pro-Trump supporters storm the US Capitol.
Our safety is always the top priority.
Constantly being on our guard has only added to the exhaustion of always being mindful of evading a dangerous virus we cannot see.
Despite it being an unpredictable, tense and at times dangerous situation, I felt in control and prepared to be there.
Reporting amidst protesters who loathe the media
While all demonstrations can be difficult to cover, there was an added level of animosity toward media from Trump supporters.
This obviously was a concern for the crew and I as I went live.
The anger also dissipated to a degree when I told them we were Australian media.
A year and a half ago I started life as a foreign correspondent amid tear gas-filled streets in Hong Kong at the start of the pro-democracy movement.
ABC News: Robert Koenig-Luck
)It was a baptism of fire that prepared me for the year that would unfold in front of me.
But this crowd was decidedly different.
In Hong Kong, protestors welcomed the press.
Here, we are by and large considered the "fake news" media by Trump supporters.
The events of January 6 will go down in history as one of the nation's darkest days.
It was a violent insurrection on the nation's seat of power, the symbol of democracy, which laid the groundwork for a locked down Washington I've never witnessed before.
Facing heavy criticism for failing to act fast and decisively, National Guard troops were quickly deployed to the capital to secure its streets ahead of Joe Biden's inauguration.
It was surreal.
For several weeks, 25,000 heavily armed, fatigue-clad officers, stalked the streets of Washington.
Getting from point A to point B was beyond impossible.
Trying to get within a reasonable distance of the Capitol or White House was pointless.
Reuters: Leah Millis
)Armoured personnel carriers were stationed at the ends of major intersections and non-scalable, steel fences erected around the nation's three pillars of democracy.
It was sad to see the city I've become a part of, ushering in a new political era behind a fortress.
A year of unprecedented events
Before arriving in Washington to take up the posting, I spent most of my time researching impeachment as I knew my first day would land on Donald Trump's case in the US House of Representatives.
It was another baptism of fire which kickstarted a busy winter.
The coverage of the assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani led to the impeachment trial and head-first into the primary season.
I started at roughly the same time as my former bureau chief, David Lipson.
We expected the year to be dominated by a busy and tumultuous election campaign.
How naive we were.
Supplied: Kathryn Diss
)The lockdown came fast.
I had just returned from the Iowa Caucus and the South Carolina primary, where we spent days on end amid huge election rally crowds.
Management strongly encouraged us to return home to Australia but after some tough conversations, I decided to stay.
For me, it was an unthinkable concept as a journalist to walk out on what felt like the two biggest stories in the world: the pandemic and the 2020 election.
The bureau effectively shut down and the correspondents, producers and camera operators, started working from home.
ABC NEWS: Kathryn Diss
)It was all hands on deck to get us set up with the technology we needed to operate from our living rooms.
We became adept at using Skype for live crosses, our camera operators, John Mees and Niall Lenihan were on-hand for technical problems.
As time went on, our operation became more sophisticated, adding lights, microphones and earpieces.
Every time I wanted to voice something, I'd sprint up the stairs to pull the doona over my head or go inside the closet.
Working from home was hugely challenging to say the least.
Not only were there what felt like hourly technical challenges some days, the four walls of the house quickly closed in on me.
After getting over the initial anxiety of what it all meant, I found myself yearning to get outside and just talk to people, but it just wasn't safe.
My only interaction with the outside world was meeting one of our camera operators to record a piece to camera.
For months on end, we'd meet in deserted, apocalyptic-looking streets, which we joked just screamed "pandemic".
It was a weird vibe during what felt like an endless three and a half months.
Then spring came and cases started to fall.
There seemed to be a light at the end of the tunnel.
The lockdown ended.
The death of George Floyd
ABC News: Kathryn Diss
)We still had adjusted working arrangements and limited staff in the bureau, but we started to migrate to a more normal flow of work.
Just as that happened, George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis, and the country was thrown into chaos.
Protests erupted on the streets of Washington.
It was the first time in almost three months, that we were able to travel.
It felt bizarre.
Few people had been seen on the streets of Washington DC for months.
Now it was swarming with tens of thousands of protestors marching on the White House.
We were given strict orders to wear masks and keep our distance to mitigate the risks of catching coronavirus.
Niall and I worked almost 24 hours straight.
The bureau then swung into around-the-clock coverage on a rolling roster just to keep up with filing demands.
Two weeks later, another black man was shot dead by police.
This time in Atlanta, Georgia.
Protests again broke out and everyone was nervously watching, thinking another Minneapolis was starting to unfold.
It never erupted in the same way.
I got the call to go at around 1am and had to be driving to get to my flight within three hours, crashing into a crazy 48 hours where we barely slept.
It was our first flight out of DC since lockdown.
Catching COVID
The same week, Donald Trump held his first political comeback rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Covering his election campaign was beyond difficult.
He loved the spotlight, and many of his supporters didn't really care for the dangers of COVID-19.
A day after returning from Atlanta, camera operator Tom Hancock and I boarded another plane, and we were off to Tulsa.
The virus continued to impact my memory recall, sleeping and eating patterns.
It took me several months to get back up to speed.
The bureau was again thrown back into a lockdown.
It was excruciating.
Losing the taste of freedom after just getting it back was a tough pill to swallow.
Then it happened again.
Another black man was shot by a white police officer.
This time, in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
The city was burning.
Management agreed we should go.
Niall and I boarded a plane to cover yet another anguished community.
A tumultuous run to election day
Supplied: Kathryn Diss
)Just as the protests started to die down, Ruth Bader Ginsburg died.
Again, another major news story broke and the ramifications for the future of the country were huge.
We'd just started to travel for election-related stories as this played out, so it stretched the resources of our small team thin.
And just like that the election campaign took yet another twist.
Donald Trump was vowing to push ahead and confirm another conservative judge on the Supreme Court — it was an olive branch to conservatives perhaps disenfranchised with his leadership.
Only a few weeks later, we woke up to news at 1am: Donald Trump had COVID-19.
At the time I was in Texas, in the midst of another election preview story, David Lipson covered it in Washington.
Supplied: Kathryn Diss
)Throughout the campaign, I covered a lot of ground across five states, speaking to everyday Americans to gauge their thoughts.
Before we knew it, election day was fast approaching.
We barely had a moment to catch our breath.
I was in the Biden camp with Niall Lenihan and producer Ryan Chatterjee.
We headed up to Delaware, Joe Biden's home state a few days before November 3 to get a feel for things.
Then we descended into coverage for days on end, as the election day that never seemed to end rolled on into weeks of court challenges by Trump's legal team.
ABC News: Kathryn Diss
)All the while, the pandemic was spiralling out of control.
Deaths and new infectious were smashing records daily.
For much of December and January, an American was dying every 28 seconds from COVID-19.
During the surge, in mid-December, I managed to secure access to an intensive care ward in Reno, Nevada.
It was confronting.
A raw, up-close look at the virus's cruellest touch.
Niall and I walked through a ward of critically ill patients, knowing three-quarters of them were unlikely to ever return home.
It was a sobering way to end the year and roll into Christmas.
With Donald Trump's second impeachment trial over, again without conviction, the dust appears to have finally settled on what was truly a tumultuous year in America.
It feels like we're finally getting a chance to catch our breath.
