How 14 years feels like 14 minutes: Long Island Remembers 9/11

By Jamie Fleming

Fourteen years have passed since the two towers of the World Trade Center were struck by terrorists in the early morning of September 11^th 2001. This disaster is still fresh in the hearts of Long Islanders who were just about sixty miles away from Ground Zero.

“It was one of those rare events where you know exactly where you were when you heard,” says Long Island journalist, Michael Fleming.

Mr. Fleming says he remembers turning to the television when the plane was shown hitting the north tower. Standing there completely stunned, he then watched the south tower get hit and crumble on the television, just minutes later. 

Upon hearing the news, Fleming drove to the nearest blood bank to give blood in hopes that it would help, turns out many other Long Islanders had the same idea. He described a long line of people who also had hopes that their blood could help all of those injured in the attack. Unfortunately, there were almost no survivors.

 “We feel it every single year when September 11^th comes, and it’s up to us to remember it and commemorate the worst tragedy of our lives. It’s a time when you want to be reflective” says Fleming.

New York City has made great efforts to build up Ground Zero for a reflection point. Yet, after just 14 years, some people aren’t quite ready to visit. “When I used to walk past Ground Zero, it made me feel like I did when I visited Normandy and Pearl Harbor, just a profound sadness.”

Fleming remembers that day as if it was just minutes ago.

Being so close to the attacks, Long Islanders recall being afraid that they were under attack, there was a continued threat after the towers were struck.

Anna Fleming, a secretary at an elementary school, recalls calling her husband to pick up their kids as she watched the towers crumble on the news station. 

Complete shock struck Mrs. Fleming as the news kept rolling in with the continued severity of the attacks. She remembers it with a clear image in mind.

 “The news, it showed everything. That’s the picture that stuck with me the most… people jumping out of the building knowing that they were going to die and choosing to die that way.”

The feelings of fright didn’t cease after the attacks, Mrs. Fleming says “I felt as though I had post traumatic stress disorder, even though I wasn’t there, I still saw it. For the longest time, it was very difficult to look up at planes because I always was afraid they were going to crash.”

It wasn’t only the adults on the Island who felt the pain, the children, although unable to process the tragedy, knew what was going on.

Mrs. Fleming said field trips were cancelled for students in schools, they were afraid of going over bridges for safety reasons. Some Long Islanders had trouble grasping the purpose of changing things, it felt to them as though it meant the terrorists won.

Some Long Islanders found themselves in Manhattan that day. James Torrelas, a detective with the New York Police Department, remembers being on the Harlem Line when someone received word that a “small plane hit the Trade Center.”

Torrelas recalled watching the south tower crumbling in front of his eyes on that “beautiful, crisp, blue sky day.”

Torrelas was to meet his unit near the site to help. He walked through the streets and recalled seeing people, covered in dust, running from a large cloud of smoke. He also ran. He was to go to the site yet his unit wasn’t able to work there due to the harsh heat emitted from the debris.

“When I saw the building crumbling down, I was paralyzed looking at it,” says Torrelas.  

He vividly recalled seeing bodies jumping from the buildings. He said that right after the north tower was hit, people in the south tower were told to stay there and stay calm, they hadn’t known what was to come.

For the next few days Torrelas worked at a morgue where people came to report missing loved ones. This he remembers as the toughest part. On the first day, “You really thought they could be alive, there was hope.”

As the days went on and bodies began to be recovered, he remembers the pain of having to give horrible news to the family members of those who were lost.

Torrelas recalls initially thinking everyone in his unit was dead because of the amount of people lost that day.

“Every time you saw someone from your unit, you were so happy.”

As many people felt once their loved ones were returned, but not all were so fortunate.

Fourteen years later, Torrelas says he vividly “remembers the cloud of smoke, I remember people turning with fear in their eyes, I remember my fear.”

Around 500 Long Islanders were killed in the attacks. Although the events on September 11^th, 2001 happened over a decade ago, the people of Long Island, whether present at the scene or not, still carry the fresh scars seared permanently in their memories.

“I felt profound sadness when I visited the Pearl Harbor memorial, but maybe because it happened so long before I was born, I didn’t understand how a cowardly sneak attack could leave such a hole in a nation's psyche. The World Trade Center attack is my generation's Pearl Harbor and we will never forget it. We will mourn for the victims, people who went out to support their families, and the rescue workers who gave their lives that day, or those who breathed in toxins that harmed them later. I still burn with sadness and rage at the memory, and I will take that feeling to my grave,” says Michael Fleming.

                                                     Image by James Ewing Photography