Remembering September 11th, 25 Years Later
Source: Facebook
On Tuesday morning, September 11, 2001, I was attending a meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Stow-Munroe Falls Chamber of Commerce.
Our monthly board meeting began at 7:30 a.m. Back then, cell phones made phone calls, handled some crude text messages, and not much else. Smartphones were still years away. We also had a rule: no cell phones during board meetings. So my phone was turned off.
The meeting ended at approximately 8:55 that morning. I walked out to my car, turned on my phone, and immediately knew something was wrong.
I had multiple missed calls and messages saying an airplane had crashed into the World Trade Center in New York City. I was trying to comprehend the messages when I learned American Airlines Flight 11 had struck the North Tower at 8:46 a.m., while we were still sitting in that meeting.
I called my office and then my wife, trying to understand what was going on. During those conversations, at 9:03 a.m., United Airlines Flight 175 struck the South Tower.
And suddenly we knew. This wasn't an accident. The United States was under attack.
My first professional instinct was to get to my office as quickly as possible. I had been a financial advisor for 14 years by then, and I assumed clients would be concerned about what this would mean for their investments, retirement accounts, and financial futures. I expected the telephone to ring incessantly.
Instead, something unimaginable happened. We did not receive a single call all day.
People weren't thinking about their portfolios... yet. They were sitting in front of their televisions watching events that were almost impossible to comprehend unfold in real time.
At approximately 9:30 that morning, my phone finally did ring, but the call had nothing to do with money.
It was Roberta Wykoff, headmaster of Cornerstone Community School, where my children attended and where I was president of the Board of Trustees. Shane was 10 years old and in fourth grade. Zach was eight and in second grade.
We had a difficult decision to make: What do you tell children about something adults themselves can barely understand?
We decided the fifth- and sixth-graders were old enough to be told the basics of what had happened. We would not tell the children in kindergarten through fourth grade, leaving those conversations to their parents. School would remain open, but parents were welcome to pick up their children if they chose.
Meanwhile, hundreds of miles away, my brother Craig was dealing with September 11 from an entirely different perspective.
Craig was a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy and served as the chief supply and logistics officer aboard the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower in Norfolk, Virginia. Nobody knew whether other attacks were coming or what the targets might be. The Navy did not want a harbor filled with American warships, presenting an inviting target, so Craig recounts the urgent effort to get as many ships out of Norfolk as quickly as possible.
For our family, the consequences did not end that day. Craig would later spend two deployments of more than six months each in the Persian Gulf as America responded militarily to September 11.
Others I knew were experiencing 9/11 in ways none of us could have anticipated.
My clients Dennis and Ginny had just finished a vacation in Ireland. They were sitting aboard an airplane on the runway, preparing to return home, when the second plane struck the World Trade Center.
Within minutes, American airspace was closed. Their flight wasn't going anywhere.
They suddenly found themselves stranded in Ireland with their trip essentially over, little money remaining, and no idea where they would stay or when they would get home.
What they recounted wasn't only the fear. They remembered the people of Ireland. Irish families and strangers opened their homes and hearts to stranded Americans. They helped provide food, housing, and kindness to people who were frightened, far from home, and watching their country suffer from across an ocean.
Amid one of humanity's worst acts, they experienced some of humanity's best.
Perhaps no image captures that contrast more powerfully than the firefighters of the New York City Fire Department.
In 2002, Bruce Springsteen released The Rising, an album deeply influenced by the events of September 11 and its aftermath. One of its most moving songs, "Into the Fire," was inspired by the first responders who entered the World Trade Center that morning.
Source: YouTube
If you would like a reminder of this poignant and moving song, I have included a YouTube link with the lyrics below.
Bruce Springsteen - Into The Fire with Lyrics
Think for a moment about what they did. Thousands of people were desperately trying to get down the stairs and escape.
The firefighters were going up.
They climbed flight after flight, carrying heavy equipment, moving toward smoke, fire, and people desperately in need of help. They understood the danger. They knew they might not return.
But people were trapped above them.
Three hundred forty-three members of the FDNY died that day.
Source: YouTube
Years later, a 60 Minutes report told the story of those firefighters and the families they left behind. It remains difficult for me to watch without becoming emotional. If you have not seen this episode, I highly encourage you to watch it. I have included a link to the full episode below.
It is a powerful reminder of what courage and sacrifice look like.
Springsteen's song affects me the same way. Its chorus asks that the strength of those who sacrificed somehow become strength for the rest of us, followed by the same hope for their faith, hope, and love.
May your strength give us strength
May your faith give us faith
May your hope give us hope
May your love give us love
One survivor gives us some sense of what those rescuers were trying to accomplish.
Genelle Guzman-McMillan worked on the 64th floor of the North Tower. She had made it down to approximately the 13th floor when the building collapsed. Buried beneath concrete and steel, she survived for roughly 27 hours before rescuers pulled her alive from the wreckage. She became the last known person rescued alive from the ruins of the World Trade Center.
Source: YouTube
Nearly 3,000 innocent people did not survive September 11.
There were also economic consequences, although they seem almost insignificant compared with the human toll. For several days, much of normal American life simply stopped. Commercial aviation was grounded. Travel collapsed. Restaurants, stores and entertainment venues emptied. Millions of Americans remained home, glued to continuous television coverage.
It was an extraordinary demonstration of the behavioral impact of 24-hour news coverage—one manifestation of what has often been described as the “CNN effect.” I didn't need an economist to explain it to me.
My telephone hadn't rung.
But something else happened after September 11 that I hope we never forget.
We came together.
People donated blood. They volunteered. They displayed American flags. They checked on neighbors. First responders worked until exhaustion. Strangers helped strangers. Americans hugged their children a little tighter.
And on the evening of September 11, members of the United States Congress gathered on the steps of the Capitol. Democrats stood beside Republicans. Together, they sang "God Bless America."
Source: YouTube
Three days later, President George W. Bush stood amid the rubble at Ground Zero with firefighters and rescue workers surrounding him. Speaking through a bullhorn, he told them—and the country—that America could hear them, and that the people responsible for the attacks would soon hear from all of us.
Source: George W Bush Presidential Library and Museum
For a country still in shock, the image of a president standing shoulder to shoulder with first responders in the ruins of the World Trade Center became another powerful symbol of national resolve and unity.
Twenty-five years later, those pictures are among the things I most want younger generations to understand.
America was frightened. We were grieving. We were angry. We didn't know what might happen next. But for a time, the things that normally divided us seemed far less important than the things that united us.
Today my grandson Sonny is five months old. September 11 will never be a memory for him. Someday it will be something he learns about in a history book, a classroom, or perhaps from his parents and grandparents.
That creates a responsibility for those of us who remember. We need to tell him about the 2,977 people who went to work, boarded airplanes, responded to emergencies, or simply began an ordinary Tuesday morning and never came home. We need to tell him about firefighters who climbed the stairs when everyone else was coming down.
We need to tell him about passengers who fought back aboard Flight 93, sailors who rushed to defend their country, rescuers who dug through rubble, teachers who protected children, and strangers thousands of miles away who opened their homes to Americans who couldn't get home.
And we need to tell him that when our country faced one of its darkest days, Americans discovered that we were capable of extraordinary strength, faith, hope, and love.
Maybe that is one of the most important things September 11 can still teach us 25 years later.
We don't have to agree on everything to care about one another. We don't need a tragedy to remind us that what connects us can be stronger than what divides us.
And we should never need another September 11 to remember what September 12 felt like.
For those of you who remember that day, I would like to ask something of you.
Where were you?
Who were you with? Who did you call? What frightened you? What act of courage or kindness do you still remember? And what would you want your children or grandchildren to understand about September 11, 2001?
I have shared my memories because I believe remembering matters. Now, 25 years later, I hope you will share yours.
Because eventually, those of us who remember September 11 will be gone.
And to keep Moving Life Forward, remembering will depend upon the stories we choose to tell.
©2026 Jesse Hurst
Senior Wealth Manager
Featured Blog Image Source: iStock.com/francois-roux