The Saturday Picture Show, Special 9/11 Edition, 2021

 

It was on this day twenty years ago that the world was changed forever. 

Welles Crowther was 24. He had just begun working as an equity trader in the World Trade Center that day. He was also a volunteer firefighter in his hometown and made it a habit to carry a red bandana at all times, even in a business suit. He used this as a makeshift mask that morning to help others escape the South Tower before the collapse took him.

Shanksville, Pennsylvania, population 273, is now known worldwide as the resting place of hijacked United Airlines Flight 93, bound for San Francisco. 40 passengers and 4 hijackers died as it crashed, but of the four planes hijacked that day, this is the one that did not reach its goal. A revolt among the passengers caused the crash, which likely saved the Capitol or the White House from the fates of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

We tend to forget that the fallen towers were at the very tip of Manhattan, making it difficult for those who made it out of the buildings and the ones adjacent to leave the area. A huge flotilla of boats of all types assembled itself and ferried 500,000 people away to safety.

Firefighter gear left behind is on display at the 9/11 Memorial Museum. 2,977 people died that day: 343 FDNY firefighters (including a chaplain and two paramedics), 37 police officers of the Port Authority PD,  23 police officers of the NYPD, 8 EMTs and paramedics from private EMS, and one patrolman from the New York Fire Patrol. 

Amid the awful chaos, Lady Liberty stood tall in the harbor.

At Summit Academy North Elementary School in Michigan, every year around this time, students place a heart on a bulletin board for every good deed they do, with the goal being to have 911 hearts (they always exceed that quota!).

My old fire company, Providence Volunteers, proudly displays a piece of WTC steel as a remembrance.

The town of Gander, Newfoundland, took in 6,700 rerouted and stranded airplane travelers that day and treated them all like family.

Every year at this time, I remember the first months after the attack. People were  more kind, more thoughtful, more sharing. I wish we could get that feeling again.