This year is going to be 22 years since the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001. Most of the children in this world have not gone through it or even know what 9/11 was like. We are taught about this event in school every year, but we really don’t dive deep into everything that happened that day. 

The Pentagon in Washington DC was struck by Flight 77, the Pentagon was hit at 9:37 am. There was a lot of damage not just to the Pentagon but all of the buildings surrounding the Pentagon. Next, two planes crashed into the World Trade Center and within a few hours both of the towers collapsed. The south tower collapsed at 9:59 a.m. and the north tower collapsed at 10.28 a.m. However, the last plane was Flight 93; the plane crashed into an open field in Somerset Country, Pennsylvania. The terrorist chose to crash the plane rather than risk the passengers and crew regaining control of the aircraft; their plane crashed at 10:03 a.m. Flight 93 went into an empty field at a speed of 563 miles per hour. By the end of the day, there had been almost 3,000 people who died. Many people are unaccounted for. Out of those thousands of people, 400 were firefighters and police, and many firefighters died from illness and were injured due to the heavy smoke. 

Here are some startling and devastating facts about 9/11:

This information is from 911memorial.org

• Even though almost 3,000 died, only 20 people survived. 
• 200 people who were in burning buildings were just falling/jumping off to avoid the burning fire.

•  The people on flight 93 tried to fight back, which caused them to crash into a field; people said their target might have been the white house.
•  Also, it took 100 days for the fire to get to ground zero. 
• There was also a three day flight ban in the United States.
•  They sent out over 100 rescue dogs to find survivors in the rubble of the towers. 
• The age range of the people who die is from 2 years old to 85 years old.
•  Al-Qaeda was responsible for the 9-11 attack. The founder of Al-Qaeda was Osama bin Laden. The group hoped that, by attacking these symbols of American power, they would promote widespread fear throughout the country and severely weaken the United States’ standing in the world community, ultimately supporting their political and religious goals in the Middle East and the Muslim world.  

I found an interview from National Geographic who interviewed John Yates. John Yates was a security guard at the Pentagon during this life changing event. The following interview started with him describing how he was talking and watching a coworker’s television when all of a sudden he heard a big explosion and the room started to get black with all of the smoke. John Yates states, “ I remember being blown through the air. I didn’t have any idea where I was when I landed.” The explosion was so powerful that the temperature in the room escalated from 75 to 1800 degrees instantly. He started crawling in an attempt to find out where he was since he couldn’t see due to all the smoke. Yates stated, “ I just remember that my first conscious thought was that my greatest fear in life was at hand and that I was going to die in a fire.” It was hard for him to breathe and he had to be careful where he was crawling since he was getting burned. Yates finally stood up and saw Army Lt. Victor Correa and the other Army Lt. Karl Knoblauch. He was helped out of the building by one of the Army Lt. They got him to the Washington Hospital Center where he recovered for the next two and a half months. 

Even though I wasn’t born yet, hearing all these stories made 9/11 sound even more devastating than it probably was. I feel that if I was born and went through this I would be extremely terrified. I asked my mom how she felt about 9/11 and she said, “ I was scared because one thing after another happened and I didn’t know when it would end. I was away at college and not near my family to see how they were doing at the time. ” 

You can see that this day has really made an impact on everyone’s lives. You can find memorials for 9/11 all over, even in different countries. There was a lot of damage done in just this one day. This was a life changing event and affected many people’s lives.