Your 9/11 stories — '20 years later, and I still can’t fathom it'

PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Twenty years ago, on Sept. 11, KYW Newsradio reported that one plane, and then another, had hit the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. Our lives changed forever in an instant, even as third hijacked plane hit the Pentagon, and a fourth went down in Shanksville, Pa.

We reached out to you, and asked you to share with us your stories, reflections and remembrances of that day when everything changed. Looking back 20 years, this is some of what you told us.

Be advised: Some of the details in these stories may be upsetting.

Gina LaPlaca, now mayor of Lumberton, N.J., was in the World Trade Center subway concourse when American Airlines Flight 11 slammed into the northern facade of the North Tower. She escaped into a war zone.

Soon, she would see people jumping to escape the fire on the upper floors of the towers. "I'll never forget," she said. "I don't know if they were a couple or just two people who worked together and just said 'Let's do this together.' They were holding hands, and they jumped."

She says surviving that experience has shaped the person she is now: "I redoubled myself towards public service, charitable work, working with nonprofits — just making sure there was value in every day that I have."

Rutgers University lecturer Elinda Kiss was attending a National Association for Business Economics breakfast meeting in the Marriott World Trade Center ballroom when the first plane hit. The hotel, situated between the two towers, was crushed in the collapse.

Mark was a child when 9/11 hit, and as an adult, he says, he can scarcely remember a time when the United States was not beset with crisis upon crisis, from gun violence, to opioids, to the coronavirus.

Monica Kenney's sister was coming from Chicago to visit her in Royersford, Pa. Then the first tower went down, and word came that all planes in flight could not land, and all planes due to take off were grounded.

Victoria had just come home on Sept. 10, 2001, from the hospital, where she had undergone a brain surgery. When she saw events play out the next day on television, she said she thought she was looking at a movie.

Retired 1st Lt. Sam Console, of the Pennsylvania National Guard, remembers being sent to the Ground Zero recovery site and later being deployed to Iraq, where he was wounded.

An FBI agent assigned to the New York office, Al Green remembers his wife, who worked for KYW Newsradio at the time, calling him to ask if he was all right.

A mother remembers helping her son get dressed for school and sending him on his way — only to have to go pick him up and bring him back home a short time later.

Louis Prevost tells of his brother, Clancy Prevost, who is the flight instructor who contacted the FBI about the 20th hijacker, Zacarias Moussaoui, a month and a half before 9/11.

Some readers emailed written testimonials to us. Excerpts from those submissions are here collected.

The morning of the attacks, approximately 1,000 senior leaders of the 42nd Infantry Division (New York Army National Guard, including the N.J. Army National Guard) were in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, preparing for a computerized wargame to take place later that year.

Adam Geibel and his colleagues got the news out of New York instead of their morning coffee, and in a couple hours' time, two-dozen men in civilian clothes were packed up and on the road, embarking on a 24-hour, nonstop drive back to New Jersey.

"I remember how quiet the truck stops were, with CNN playing the same footage in each one of them. I remember the grim expressions on countless citizens. I remember a lot of people quietly in tears," he wrote.

"I remember thinking as I drove to St. Teresa of Avila School that morning how very blue the sky was. To this day whenever the sky is that blue, I call it the 9/11 sky," wrote Nancy Morrisroe.

"As the horror unfolded, my office became a command center since a decision was made to not alert or upset our student population. … Sadness wrapped its arms around the teachers, staff and administrators. We controlled our tears so the students wouldn’t be upset. In the privacy of the faculty room and my office, tears flowed along with muffled screams when we watched the towers come down.

"Who can ever forget Sept. 11? … I felt that I would be disrespectful if I had any type of normalcy. I prayed for all affected by this evil assault on my beloved country. As a school community, we gathered for Mass on Sept. 12 to pray for healing and for those families who would never see their loved ones again.

"As the 20th anniversary approaches, I pray that America will be safe from the hands of terrorists. Given the current climate, I am not so sure."

"I remember taking my son to elementary school on what was a beautiful day with a picture-perfect sky. ... I noticed some staff members in a closet huddled around a television …. I asked what was going on and saw for myself. I cannot remember being so afraid. At that point, I took my child home, thinking that if something more terrible was going to happen, I wanted to be with my child," wrote Randi H. Butow.

"Another vivid memory I have is the silence in the sky for the following … days. I felt a vulnerability that I had never experienced before."

Finally, he wrote, "I remember being so proud of my fellow Americans and all of the brave first responders, who were in the thick of everything — and feeling a little helpless as well."