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[Music] this portrait was a gift from a woman in New Jersey who wanted to do something for those who lost someone on September 11th I sent her a picture of me and the baby and then a separate picture of my husband and asked her she could put the three of us together because this is something that I will never have so it's another bittersweet thing in my life but I'm glad that I have it [Music] [Music] [Applause] it's lonely it's very lonely I have like the quietest house I think on the planet I have three dogs and two of them don't bark and so it gets very lonely [Music] Minsky chopper 880 right we are just currently getting a look at the World Trade Center we have something that has happened here at the World Trade Center we noticed flame and an awful lot of smoke from one of the towers of the World Trade Center we're just coming up in the favela the day started off great I was just served a cup of tea in bed and it was a beautiful day I was enjoying it all of a sudden my wife received a call from her friend and she runs outside and suddenly she screams the buildings here behind him at least were the buildings had once stood and sure enough a plane had crashed into it she thought it was an accident but I said listen honey don't kid yourself those are terrorists we had seen a fireball and I can tell you it appears as though something has gone into the World Trade Center the phone rang and no no one and I got up and I went I heard the machine go on and I picked it up and I just heard static like I didn't really hear anything or think anything of it and I hung back to hone the phone back up and I'll continue to go back into the bedroom and I went back into bed and ten minutes later the phone rang again and I went back and I picked it up and it was just one of my husband's friends he was like is Joe okay and I'm like well yeah he's at work you know why wouldn't he be at this point I have no idea what would happen so he's Lisa turn on the television but there now appears to be plain if they look like inside control dolls and they a medium-sized body plan which ends on both sides this fly right into the building I thought a person with a Shia [Music] on my way to the bank I heard on a radio station that a small commuter plane hit into the building and my first reaction was oh well Mike will be okay because he's not right next to the window so you see baat that was a second plane that just for one it's been another one Carl yes he hit building number one the other building yes he flew right into it though the building number two is now burning there are fire crews just screaming into this area from every conceivable direct [Music] [Applause] I was moving north they kept kind of shooing everyone out of the way and I would stop along the way take pictures and heard another giant explosive boom and we all thought oh my god that's a bomb or that's another head and we were all just like started screaming at the time there was we did see a second explosion of some type in Tower number one so both of the towers of the World Trade Center are now affected this has I heard the aviation of the NYPD helicopter pilots yelling and that it was a second commercial airliner that had hit the building and as I looked up the second tower was exploding over top of us from the roof of the CNN tower anchor Aaron Brown reports in the most devastating attack on America ever I remember as I first looked at the towers thinking I have neighbors who are not coming home that my daughter is going to have classmates and friends whose parents are not coming home Neil and Ella Mariani are flying from Boston to Los Angeles to attend her daughter's wedding she via Chicago he non-stop it doesn't matter he says will arrive three minutes apart he said I see you you know I love you I'll see you three minutes my plane comes in I said okay so all of a sudden he flew back in there and he just gave me a great big hug and he said I love you and he was perspiring and I remember him and perspiring when we're getting married and I think he was nervous he wasn't crazy about flying that's the end three kisses and goodbye we use that sound to get your attention right now we need the attention of every firefighter in New York City the New York City Fire Department is issuing a total recall all hands on deck so to speak they need all the help they yet they need everyone to report that there was a full recall in and in my 38 years in the New York City Fire Department there's never been a full recollection a senior government official is saying that they are now pursuing reports one or both of these planes were hijacked and now they're saying that the crashes may have been the result of a suicide mission when the second plane hit I had ordered the shutting down of the city the bridges the tunnels I was I was extremely concerned about secondary attacks on the ground thousands of workers are trapped inside the World Trade Center on the top floors dozens of people are left with a harrowing choice be burned alive or do the unthinkable people are jumping out the windows over there jumping out the windows I guess because they're trying to see themselves I don't know I don't know everybody just doesn't know where to go they won't but everything is blocked off you can't anything they tell us they get out but there's nowhere to go you can see the people jumping out the window they're drunk I have the window right in oh my god and I saw a person jump off the top you know up near the top of the World Trade Center it was like this you know spread-eagle position you know like he was just you know thinking maybe I can stop myself you know you could see he still wanted to live and I could was thinking my god this is an executive and this New York cop and I we looked at each other and he was sobbing I mean he was we were both just completely oh my god what's happening to the world I'm Jeff Kaplan I'm Pat Carroll and the nation is on full terrorist alert - now it looks as though the tower here this is horrible it looks like the North Tower of the World Trade Center has just completely collapsed where the building once stood there is nothing but smoke there was smoke billowing and covering all the surroundings on the way down I heard on the radio oh my god oh my god the building just fell down when I heard that I said it can't be but I'll bet we just lost 205 one and now the other one the second Tower of the World Trade Center has just completely collapsed where are you Sean right now I'm on Broadway and Leonard Street and I am in a crowd we are running north on Broadway we are escaping an enormous [Music] that is racing a Broadway and then all of the sudden all of the windows on the outs outskirt so that the building we were in started to shatter and there was this enormous gush of smoke and debris and dust that just poured into the building [Applause] and there as you can see perhaps the second tower the front tower the top portion of which is collapsing good lord there are no words Kerstin Christophe works in the World Trade Center husband Charles right next door with thousands of others he flees the area away from the dust and the smoke that engulfed downtown Manhattan and became dark and I thought at that point and I thought that we were just attacked I thought of Wheaton really in war and you know we're just that's the end of it you could see nothing it was solid white outside it was like a solid white a dull white a grey you couldn't see anything and there was a rotating door a revolving door and we walked through that door to the outside and and I realized that that stuff that was out there that that gray look was dust it was a fine dust the ground was covered with about two or three inches of dust and debris [Music] only a handful of people are pulled from the rubble it soon becomes clear that the hastily gathered ambulances have come in vain [Music] we're all here since 9 o'clock this morning I know myself and these guys and a lot more were buried under the first blast it devastation is an understatement I mean just walking and staring at this that something like this can happen in 2001 is the scariest thing that you can ever think of go home if I wasn't working I wouldn't even be here please go home for your safety if you want to go to Brooklyn welcome onto the bridge and a bus to take your core if you want to go upside my head go to Canal Street and the train gets the train from there tens of thousands of people evacuate southern Manhattan by foots via bridges and ferries the only way off the island from a distance in the other boroughs Manhattan is an eerie sight the black cloud you must understand was coming straight at us the wind was pointing right at our house but on the left side of that enormous cloud and on the right side of that enormous cloud was gorgeous blue sky a surreal situation Ellen Mariani is stranded at a closed Airport in Chicago still not knowing what has happened she asks one of the many reporters on site to check on our husband's flight and I said what's wrong what did you find out and he just wouldn't talk he's in the first things out of his mouth was I shouldn't be the one telling you and I went that's when I really got started ice tell me what and he said your husband's plane crashed [Music] and I can remember getting out of the motorcade and walking from Church Street and walking through an enormous amount of people firefighters and cops and rescue workers in and then getting to the site and looking and it that reminded me of hell I thought if this was if I if yeah if you're going to hell this was what it would be like Italian five units went plus the Chiefs bar and unfortunately nobody returned among the tens of thousands fleeing by ferry to New Jersey is Charles Kristoff during the attack his wife Kirsten called a secretary and informs her that she's all right he hopes she has gone home but arrives at a pitch-black house without his keys I didn't have keys to get home so I I rang the bell several times nobody was at home obviously Kirsten was not at home so I had to break you know kitchen door you know to enter in a home Charles hurries to the daycare center where they've been waiting anxiously for either of the parents to pick up 12 month old Gretchen it is late she needs to be fed and put to bed I surely believe that she was saved because of the message she left for me that she was saved and I should not worry about her so I thought that the shoes in a hospital and some place where they were evacuated and she didn't have chance to talk to me convinced that Kirsten will eventually come home Charles takes on an unaccustom'd role I left I pick up Gretchen from the daycare and again and I fed her I gave her a bath and then 7:30 again start making calls checking my messages and that was my day every single day for three weeks most families of the missing truly believe that their loved ones are okay and will come home at some point for a while I had the thought maybe he's just walking around in the city and doesn't know what's happened you know and you know these kind of fans fanciful thoughts come into your mind and wishful thinking I hope they find something I just remember just knowing in my heart he's somewhere he's in a hospital he doesn't know who he is he's helping people he'll he's gonna call me the waiting was just torturous waiting to hear from him you can see large pieces to the building falling you can see the smoke rising this is just a horrific scene in a horrific moment about 7 o'clock been on the air about 10 hours at that point I took a half an hour off and I came inside is very hot and they were I think quite worried about me to be honest and I came off the balcony off the rooftop and there was a chair they there was a chair i sat in the chair collapsed in the chair and someone said hey you okay and I said yeah I said what do you need I said seem to be alone for a minute alone and I started crying the police closed off the area residents have to show ID and struggle to enter their homes some get only a few minutes to salvage whatever they can from their apartments I needed to have ID I needed to get past the checkpoints I needed to get on some list and I was able to do it through this pet shelter group the American Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals which allowed people to visit their pets and I had a fish and eventually was able to come get the fish and I had I came up with an escort and we had a total of 10 minutes to get up here on foot 26 flights in the dark get the fish and I put it into like a salad bowl covered it up got food and a couple of other things so once I had the fish into the salad ball the guys like you know it's really time to get out of here you've overstayed your welcome he's like okay you have like three more minutes and I just raced and grabbed everything I saw underwear I don't know like all these hair brushes of course none of it was what I really needed you know how you go on a vacation and you leave your toothbrush behind always so I had this mountain of possessions and they were all probably covered with with asbestos but I was so thrilled to have something that was my own [Music] only dust and ashes are dug out by the excavators Police Commissioner Carrick has sent home by Mayor Giuliani but he decides to go back to Ground Zero at some point in time I guess I was walking in his you know through the smoke and in the dust and soot I saw a group of people walking toward me and it was it was mayor Giuliani and and he come up to me and he said I I told you to go home I said well I thought you were going home he says well I had to come back you know just to take a look and and it was it was hard you know was hard because I knew I knew we were we were we're missing a lot of people and you know hold on guys thousands of rescue workers with hundreds of machines find only a few people alive in the rubble in the first 24 hours soon thereafter most talk of the missing [Music] but the EMS workers are there mostly for not though other rescue workers are glad that they are there we had everything set up for victims and what we were recovering were bodies and parts it was nothing else basically what we were taking care of the people that we were taking care of were firemen and police who were right in the thick of things washing eyes cleaning skin to get the debris out remember the next morning waking up thinking it wasn't a nightmare it happened really happened walk back over here and when I'm on the roof and looked down a smoky horrible sickening sight and the smell had started to move uptown by that point and the dust had moved uptown remember thinking it's real you didn't imagine this Ellen Mariani remains at the airport waiting word from United Airlines she finally receives a phone call a phone ring and they said to pick it up and it was somebody I don't know who it was some woman said Lois Mariani Lois Neal Mart or something was on that flight bang with the phone and then I some lady took my arm and she says I'm the lady that's going to take you to my house and we left for the next four days I was there infuriated by the lack of airline security and by the way United handled her situation Ellen has decided to sue the airline industry she writes a letter to the judge in the name of her husband one he would have written if he were still alive Ellen insisted on wearing a second yellow rose for me in my absence I wish I could say to Ellen my wife on this upcoming July 30th happy 14th wedding anniversary but I can't I'm gone death did we part Caroline Johnson is displaced from her home she wanders from hotel to hotel what I would do was just call up hotels and go you know hey I'm from Battery Park City got no home what are you charging for displaced people and I would just get on the phone every night and call I'm just like dialing for dollars looking for a good deal and I went through a couple of I had about four hotels and stayed at them successively and while I was there I would find you know get food can openers little plates various ways to you know just recreate a home in a hotel [Music] it will take some time before the status of twenty three police officers 37 Port Authority officers and three hundred or forty three firemen changes from missing to deceased for months battalion chief Joe Nardone refuses to use the term we're saying they're missing they're unaccounted for but for our station we're missing 14 members and we're missing 32 members for the whole battalion and you know we we just keep at it hoping to find some something that we can bring back to the families that the families can can have a proper burial or have a proper service and where we're at right now is that we've had three memorial services and we have a lot more to go [Music] everyone keeps using the word missing in the hope that loved ones will be found everybody was doing what they could do to find him I put his picture up on the TV and and I called the news and I said you know my husband this is what he was wearing I know exactly what he walked cuz I just closed that morning and um I know we're you know and we just were waiting to hear from him family scour the area hospitals in despair for loved ones those who have no answers take to the airwaves in the hope that anyone may have an answer my name is Tracey Woodall and I'm looking for my husband Brent James Woodall and I'm just trying to get his picture anywhere I can and just in case anybody has seen him he's been missing since Tuesday he called me several times from the World Trade Center I just keep calling him and leaving him messages and telling him that I'm looking for her that's what we're doing tonight all I could think about I mean all I could think about then all I could think about now you know fifty thousand people go to work went to work in those buildings how many they were getting out I mean we were watching the most awful thing it is searching for remnants and remains with dogs with special cameras trained to find a tooth a bone some hair I brought DNA samples like her a hairbrush toothbrush I got a piece of hair from Gretchen and they asked me also to do some kind of like a swab from her mouth and I provided everything I could to the police in order to identify her because I thought it probably maybe she was harmed she couldn't speak she couldn't communicate they couldn't read enta fight her on September 13th Gretchen turns one she knows that something is not right the first days immediately after September 11 she was just like cooking at the door behind me talking from mommy you know and and and and calling you know mommy mom that was the first word she learned say mommy and I I just you know hold my tears and try because trying not to show that I'm sad because said of us she's gonna start crying then one October morning two police officers ring the doorbell at his New Jersey home and asked if they can come in and when we inside they announced kirsten was found about it was found and they identified her by the dental records and and I I was so shocked they found her in the river with hundreds of her about us rescue units from all over the country come to Ground Zero under the one and a half billion ton of rubble are the remains of six underground floors if shopping mall and a parking garage Tara Bing visits ground zero a week and a half after 9/11 only then does her hope evaporate to find Michael looking at what happened just made me realize that there's no way he's today of fun remains but I still hope I still want him to find something it's a different type of closure I would hope I would get from that that morning you got a phone call first phone call Lisa Reyna fights her sorrow by talking about Joe even on television she too was convinced that he'll come back I always kept hope like a lot of people gave up right away all his friends wife started having memorials and I just refused I was just like I'm not gonna have something I know he's coming I know when he was coming home but the day that the baby was born I knew in my heart nothing in the world would have prevented him from being there if he could so that's what I knew [Music] while America mourns and charities thrive through a nationwide telethon some regularity returns Broadway reopens [Music] the business spirit see September 11 as a source for fast cash vendors sell photos t-shirts and other memorabilia they sell like hotcakes though the papers are outraged [Music] bush grips the national pastime to boost patriotism flags wave everywhere in an outpouring of national pride so badly wounded is felt throughout the country [Music] [Applause] [Music] only few Americans don't participate in the outburst of patriotism never before has the country been so badly humiliated a slap on the rose you should see America as a sleeping giant but when it finally wakes up after getting kicked in the ass be careful because difference is no longer exist there are no more immigrants there are no more Democrats or Republicans there are no more conservatives and liberals there's only one thing and Americans and how do they show this they show this by their national anthem which is heard at the oddest times Katrina vanden Heuvel is the editor of the oldest weekly newspaper in the United States she is one of the first to question all the flag-waving in the days after September 11th I think there was a genuine authentic flag waving I mean you know that the flag and the patriotism it became manipulated very quickly it became overdone it became false in many ways it was used by politicians Fareed Zakaria is the foreign editor for Newsweek magazine he understands why so many Europeans look at American patriotism with distrust I think it's always difficult for Europeans to quite understand American patriotism because it's very different from European nationalism European nationalism is essentially a kind of blood and soil nationalism in America patriotism is mostly associated with a defense of liberalism of the idea of liberty of individual freedom of human rights and things like that but the nation remains critical and cynical this magazine was called an American this magazine was called unpatriotic because we adhere to the canons of journalism raising tough questions dissenting from the official line it was a very difficult period in those months after September 11th for journalists who attempted to raise questions because they were immediately labeled by the government and millions of Americans is unpatriotic and yeah I would say that the patriot police made life a little uncomfortable for those of us who believe our job is to ask a lot of questions and throw a lot of ideas out there it was not the most comfortable time I've ever had in my life I have to say some of it was made more difficult by this administration which made very clear in those first days that it was going to play hardball with any journalist who raised tough questions and you had an attorney general who went up on the hill in Washington to Congress and said those who criticized this administration are abetting terrorism criticism is not accepted whoever isn't with us is against us is Bush's Maxim and that includes the media despite its long history of independence and independent reporting there is a danger in the in America a country that's very diverse and very open of a kind of silent censorship it's not anything official it's not something that a government does but there is a tendency to ostracize politically incorrect views and I think for a few months after September 11th it was considered politically incorrect to ask questions this changes when FBI whistleblower steps forward and explains what the government knew and when they knew it FBI agent Coleen Rowley reveals to a speechless Congress that the bureau and the CIA have been warning the government for an imminent attack Bush dismisses it as gossip in terms of the gossip and the finger-pointing level-3 staffers trying to protect you know trying to protect her hide adilyn I get some concern that's just typical Washington DC but Washington does know the CIA knew of al-qaeda's Network the FBI of the flight training schools and Bush was born in August of possible attacks at that point you suddenly saw journalists move into a very different mode and anger that this administration had so managed the news had been so secretive and had withheld information why then that the government ignore the warnings perhaps because they were too hard to believe we couldn't imagine the the the the level of maliciousness and the callousness about human life the willingness to take innocent human lives but if you take that out of the picture this was the the obvious thing to do the Twin Towers were attacked once before Egyptian Shaykh Abdul Rahman who is said to have ties to al-qaeda is behind the attacks those towers were bombed in 1993 a year and a half later they bombed the alkyl part towers in Saudi Arabia another two years later they bombed the United States embassies in Tanzania in Kenya another year and a half later they bombed the Cole was this a surprise that they were coming here no they how many messages do you need before you take some action the real story goes back three decades Palestinian terrorists hijacked four planes released the passengers and then blew them up in a Jordanian desert America says former FAA inspector general Maris Chievo completely ignored the incident in the ensuing 30 years there have been approximately 685 hijackings say well you know Americans didn't pay attention to that because they all happened overseas no actually they didn't there were over a hundred of them in the United States of America and we aren't talking take me to Cuba and there were hijackings in the 90s as well in the mid-1990s the FAA compiled scenarios of possible sky jackings including the use of commercial planes as a weapon mary ski evolved when the government and the airline industry shrugged their shoulders and they were very openly discussing the possibility of another bombing or attack on aviation and we were sitting in the office of the administrator of the FAA and all the security people were there and one of the security chiefs said well look if we had another Pan Am 103 it would cost you know a billion a billion five but if we made aviation completely safe it could cost ten in dollars a bargain by today's price day by the way it would cost ten billion dollars and so the economics just don't add up it's not worth the investment to make it safe since September 11th the airport security has been overtaken by the US Department of Transportation costing the government billions of dollars and still the measures are not perfect Kirsten Christoph is gone of that Charles is now certain just a certain is that his daughter Gretchen has just him he fulfills his role as a single parent with great dedication when Gretchen is at daycare he hunts for a new job being an experienced immigration attorney with impeccable credentials he knows that a job requires 12 to 14 hour days I sent my resume and tried to find a job I had few interviews but when I say that I'm a single parent and I have to take care of my 12:00 noon daughter I have to come you know after 9:00 and I have to leave earlier you know they were very reluctant I mean almost there was no chance to be hired Caroline Johnson battles the red tape she sent from pillar to the proverbial host pleading for reimbursements that she's entitled to well I saw the Red Cross and safe Verizon it's a fast day about two hours they approved everything one thing I didn't get but I basically got reimbursed for $1,400 worth of stuff and it's only 11:30 it is that unusual well usually it takes much longer I usually figure about five to seven hours from fellow victims she hears that financial aid for displaced persons is being offered by the Red Cross the guy was like we are we really understand how difficult your situation is and we are going to give you money that is from the people of the United States and you know I just want you to know we're here for you and he gave me a check for two hundred and fifty dollars and that was my grant several family members of 9/11 victims have formed a group that makes quilts a kind of a therapy there've been feels that this group best understands her everyday you know when the news is on about you know the war and terrorists and the threats it's a different twist for me I think everyone else deals with it and it's upsetting and it's scary but for this group it's it has a very it has a deeper meaning it's a reminder Oh [Music] while making the quills 'as was brought them together the therapy sessions have become a big part of their lives they have each other and together they tried to overcome their gruesome losses they share a lot of sorrow but also a lot of laughs I went to a school reunion and I hadn't seen a lot of these people for 15-20 years and the most popular question was when are you getting remarried okay after the sixth time or fifth time I looked at that person and said I have so many men lined up I don't know which one to pick from and I walked away see people think and this has happened probably to many of us about when are you gonna you know winning and marry or date people think that's the sign of moving on and I don't see that [Laughter] [Music] [Music] some of Joanna's remains are found at Ground Zero in May they are symbolically cremated and symbolically buried we just recently they found some of him and I just recently buried him in May I actually thought that it would help me and I don't I don't know why it's not I I wish you it would it's not bringing any closure whatsoever I thought they might be me seeing the coffin as having a mass and putting him in the ground and I it doesn't bring any closure at all it's horrible um in fact I talk about this a lot to my family and my friends it's eating dinner by yourself going to bed at night by yourself it's very I mean like I I have him which is great but I don't have him at night to hold me you know to watch TV with me to make me laugh it's it's it's horrible it's a horrible horrible feeling and and I know it's only 11 months but it's it's a long 11 months and it feels like it's it's been forever since I've had somebody in my life to just be a companion you know to have somebody around it's very lonely I thank God for that machine Ellen Mariani can't stand to be in the house she sees her husband Neil everywhere she looks I left here in November I couldn't stand it he would sit in the other couch watching TV he would you know go into the kitchen I had two little dogs he'd take them out in the month it was just it was like I'm a silent visual movie going on in your head now my kids are grown up and I have no one around here and the neighbors don't talk to you because they don't know how you feel and and that I want to intrude on your privacy and they'll dodge you in the store we didn't know what to say to you you know it's strange [Music] I'm functioning I try to get out I have met a great group of people here and spend a lot of time with them work is not the same for me I struggle with that and I'm not one to give up on things so that's been hard it's lonely it's very lonely I have like the quietest house I think on the planet I have three dogs and two of them don't bark and so it gets very lonely [Music] [Music] from Memorial to funeral he goes after more than half a year it is a never ending story for Joan or dome [Music] last night they found the fifth man fourth fireman fifth man from the company of engine 40 which is also in our battalion so we we've just recovered another four men and the officer from age of 40 they've been down at the Trade Center working till four o'clock in the morning and now they've found four more guys plus the officer five guys from engine forty so that'll be another five funerals we're going to go to