O’Donnell & Associates Remembers Sept. 11 on Its 25th Anniversary

It is remarkable to believe that a quarter century has passed since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Over the years, I've come to learn that most people have a Sept. 11 story to tell, even some too young to remember or who weren't even born, about when two commercial jets were deliberately flown into the World Trade Center and a third into the Pentagon. A fourth crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after a heroic, but failed attempt by its passengers to foil hijackers who had overtaken the pilots. Almost 3,000 lives were lost that day. Another 9,400 people would die in the years that followed from 9/11-related illnesses.

I was reporting for the Daily News and it was Primary Election Day. I was up early in my car chasing Bronx Borough President and mayoral candidate Freddy Ferrer, who with his wife had just voted and were in a car heading downtown from the Bronx.

I had 1010 WINS on the radio playing when the announcer came on to say that a plane had struck the World Trade Center. A short while later the announcer returned with an update of a second plane striking the Twin Towers. I called the news desk. "Get down there Ralphie!" my editor screamed when answering the call. Something told me as I got close to leave my car parked on Canal Street and walk the rest of the way to the towers. I got within about ten blocks on West Broadway when the first tower fell and had to turn and run. It was like so many similar images of crowds fleeing the massive cloud of dust and debris that came rumbling down.

I found shelter in a crowded bar where there was no power. Afterwards, I spent months reporting from Ground Zero and coming to grips with the devastation and heartache of losing so many people and interviewing their families. But it also was a moment of unity and coming together as a nation that proved we had defeated those who attacked us. Hate did not win. It won't win now either, even as some try to poison this anniversary with Islamophobia.

The following are the stories my colleagues at O'Donnell & Associates have to tell about that tragic day. We never forgot, and never will:

Marc Cohen, Vice President of Government Affairs: I was in second grade on September 11, 2001. I remember being outside playing at recess when our teachers suddenly brought us back into the classroom. At that age, I obviously couldn't comprehend what was happening, but I remember knowing that something was very wrong.

My mom was an attorney with the U.S. Small Business Administration and was detailed to FEMA for disaster relief. In the months that followed, she spent a significant amount of time in New York City helping with the recovery. As a second grader, when I heard that Mom was going to New York to help with the "cleanup," I pictured her with a mop and bucket.

It wasn't until I was older that I understood what her proverbial mop and bucket actually was. She was sitting with survivors and people whose lives and livelihoods had been turned upside down, helping them navigate what came next and begin to get back on their feet.

That has always shaped the way I think about September 11. We rightly remember the tremendous bravery of the first responders who ran toward danger that day, but there were also so many people who showed up in the days, weeks and months that followed to help strangers rebuild their lives.

Twenty-five years later, I still have the memories of a second grader who knew something terrible had happened, but I have a much deeper appreciation for what that day meant, the lives that were lost and forever changed, and the countless ways people stepped up for one another afterward.

Dr. Ellen Grant, PhD, LCSW-R, Senior Adviser for Health Care: I was President of Niagara Falls Memorial Hospital on 9/11. I'd been at a meeting and was parking my car to go into the hospital. A doctor stopped to ask me if I heard what happened. I hadn't heard. He told me to go to the doctor's lounge with the TV on. The lounge was packed with folks watching as the second plane hit. So many audible gasps, folks crying.

I made an announcement of some sort to the hospital for prayers for those souls lost and prayers for our country. I, like so many, will Never Forget.

David Granville, Western New York Office Manager: 9/11 was Primary Day in Buffalo. I was at work on the second floor at City Hall on a clear, blue-sky day, like New York City. I could have had my radio tuned into NPR, but don't remember how I heard about the first plane. I watched the TV broadcast in horror as the second plane crashed through the second tower. The primaries were postponed.

Jim Moore, Vice President and Policy Director: I was in sixth grade. I still remember my teacher rolling a TV into the classroom and being very shaken by it. The first couple of days after were filled with uncertainty; it was hard to process a tragedy of that magnitude.

That said, I will always remember how New York refused to be broken by it, and that led to some powerful moments. As I was a kid at the time, my memories are mostly sports, whether it be Mike Piazza's homer in the Mets' first game in New York City following the attacks or the Buffalo Sabres wearing jerseys with "New York" across the chest in the first game at Madison Square Garden. That resilience is very inspiring for me. It doesn't detract from the level of catastrophe at all, but the unity and resolve we saw in the following weeks in the face of something so terrible is something I think about quite a bit.

Jack O'Donnell, Managing Partner: Twenty-five years ago, I was following a dream. I was a candidate for office here in Buffalo. I had just left a great job with Sen. Chuck Schumer to move home from New York City and finally take my shot. In the middle of petitioning, a judge threw out the lines and I found myself running in a district I never would have chosen. There were some other challenges, but this is what I had always wanted to do. On 9/10 my friends and volunteers—including most of Schumer's staff—were up all night putting up signs and hitting the polls at 6 a.m., greeting voters and bringing donuts to poll workers.

Primary Day at dawn was bright and full of promise. Our campaign had done everything right, we were peaking at the right time, we had identified well over our win number, brought ideas (and opposition research) to the race and I knew we were going to win.

Then everything changed. It changed for me, but it was nothing to what happened to so many others. It was nothing like what happened to America.

The primary was rerun two weeks later but it never felt right to campaign. I held fundraisers for the Red Cross but it was hard to wrap my head around a traditional campaign or even keeping ours going.

Two weeks later the vote took place on a dark, cold, rainy day. I lost by 314 votes. When the first vote was cancelled, ballots were counted in an election district where I was ahead by 2-1, where I lost by a similar margin on 9/25.

Sen. Schumer put me back on staff until the end of the year. I was back in Manhattan. I went to memorials. I was a liaison to New York state and Gov. Pataki's office on rebuilding efforts. And I saw how much had been lost by so many. None of that made my pain or sadness at losing go away. But it certainly helped put it into context.

That day--and time--is seared into my memory for so many different reasons. The next year, I caught on with Alan Hevesi and helped run his campaign for state comptroller. I got back into politics and went to law school. I started O'Donnell & Associates. Losing was a blessing as I got the candidate part out of my system and learned to love politics and government in a different way and worked to understand what moved things in an ever-deeper way that still influences my work today.

Still, my heart longs for the unity of purpose that these dastardly attacks yielded on our politics; for the true love and pride and most importantly belief in America and in American values. I'm confident that will come back but unfortunately not soon enough.

Joanna Pasceri, Director of Communications: On 9/11/2001, I was an anchor/reporter at WKBW-TV in Buffalo. I had been moved to the night shift that day because it was Primary Day, and I was scheduled to cover the elections that night.

That's why I was home when the first reports came in about a plane hitting the World Trade Center. My husband called and told me to turn on the TV. At first, it seemed like a story affecting New York City. But as the tragic events unfolded, I became concerned and decided to get dressed and head into the station.

When I arrived, the newsroom was scrambling to find the local impact of what was happening. I was sent to the U.S. Border Patrol offices to find out how the attacks were affecting operations at our nearby border.

A young, newly hired photographer and I jumped into a car and headed there. When we pulled up to the building, I was just about to tell him, "Don't pop the trunk yet to grab the gear—we don't know what's going on."

But it was too late.

He hit the button on the dashboard, the trunk flew open, and suddenly dozens of Border Patrol agents came spilling out of the building, guns in hand and pointed in our direction.

I panicked and jumped out of the car, raised my hands, and identified who we were and what we were doing there. They were not happy with us. Everyone was on edge, unsure of what might happen next. I never got my interview, but I'm sure they were grateful for the false alarm.

In the years that followed, I told countless stories of Western New Yorkers who lost loved ones in the attacks and were left to carry that pain.

Twenty-five years later, the sadness of that day still lingers. I will never forget.

Lauren Voorhees, Associate: On 9/11, I had not yet been born. I was born a year later, in July of 2002. However, my parents, and especially my father, were both impacted heavily by the event (as all of America was), as they worked in the finance industry and knew many of the folks in the top floors of the World Trade Center. He recounted three stories to me today:

My father knew several folks that worked at a bank which had its buildings right across the street from the World Trade Center, on the Hudson River. On that day, one of his friends was outside having his daily coffee and bagel, like any other day, before going upstairs to trade. He remembers seeing this plane coming straight over the river. It was a passenger plane, and he says the image is frozen in his heart and mind. He's sitting there having coffee when he watches the plane go straight over him, smashing into the World Trade Center. Initially, he thought it was an accident, some kind of pilot error, until he sees the other plane come in, and realizes this was orchestrated.

Another sad story. One of my father's friends, who attended my parents' wedding, worked for one of the brokerage firms who lost a lot of people on 9/11. He had a friend who had been working in London for many years, and this man had just accepted a new job that transferred him to New York City. Two months after his move, and after a lifetime of living in London, he was dead.

What is even sadder is that my parents knew people on the top 30 floors of the World Trade Center. Their family members eventually recounted how the folks on the top 30 floors didn't initially register the panic, because the planes were far below them, and they thought it was just a scare, that they needn't and shouldn't panic, and to follow regular evacuation rules, like they had been taught to do in previous scares. But when the first building came down, they knew they were not going to make it.

Folks on the upper floors began making farewell phone calls to their families. A 9/11 widow recounted to my father a few months after the tragedy took place that her husband called to say goodbye to her and tell her that he loved her. And then many people started jumping, holding hands with colleagues they barely knew, to avoid dying by the flames below.

What is so fascinating is how all Americans rallied around a President (George Bush) who many later disliked in the wake of what had happened. With all the bloodshed that took place that day and ensued afterwards, 9/11 turned the whole world around on its head. I feel the retaliation and fear from that day, and the ensuing events, have not disappeared on a national or international level — it's just changed form.