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WHEELING -- Today marks the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks via airliners on New York City’s World Trade Center, the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania -- and many Ohio Valley residents are likely remembering what they were doing at that moment and how it impacted them then and still today.
Bridgeport resident Larry Barnes, commander of American Legion Post 159, said on 9/11 he was working for a company, Shawn, Stone & Webster, that did maintenance on nuclear power plants on the East Coast. He was working at a plant just 30 miles from New York City during the terrorist attacks.
“The pilot on the plane, he was the backup pilot. The only way he knew to get to New York City was to follow the Hudson River, so he flew the plane right over our nuclear plant,” Barnes said. “Our plant was in lockdown … no one was allowed to leave the plant.”
Barnes said there was some concern that another plane could be used to possibly target the plant.
“It was a scary time,” he said. “From certain areas by the plant, we could see the smoke coming from the World Trade Center.”
He noted Sept. 11 is also he and his wife Cheryl’s wedding anniversary. He was not able to speak to her until later that evening after the phone lines had been opened back up.
The couple lived in Bridgeport. He commuted each week to different power plants for work and came home on weekends. A delivery of flowers came for her later that evening, an anniversary present, but it arrived before she was able to speak to him. She was worried sick about him, he said.
“I had ordered her flowers, a cornucopia of flowers. But because of what happened they didn’t get delivered until that evening and the flowers were all dead,” he said. “She told him, ‘My husband didn’t order dead flowers.’ When he offered her roses, she told him, ‘My husband didn’t order me roses either.'”
Barnes said he believes he made it home the weekend after the attacks. He noted while still at the plant there was a call from NYC officials for people with torch-cutting skills to come to Ground Zero.
“They actually were asking for anybody with cutting torches to come to the World Trade Center to cut steel. I had some pipe fitters and iron workers and we let them go to cut up steel. They were cutting steel to see if there were any survivors,” Barnes said, noting he stayed at the plant and kept working.
Barnes said 9/11 is a day he will never forget because of the attacks and that it is also his wedding anniversary. He and his wife are celebrating their 44th anniversary today with a trip to the Belmont County Fair.
“I’m going to buy her a steak sandwich; she loves those,” he said.
Barnes, 78, a U.S. Army veteran who served in Vietnam, said he remembers there being a large influx of people joining the military because of 9/11.
“Three thousand people died that day in New York, at the Pentagon and in Shanksville. I think it opened the eyes to America to what terrorists can do if we don’t stay vigilant. … Our country was attacked and they wanted to do their part to defend our country,” he said of the new recruits.
Steve Johnston, who is now operations superintendent for the city of Wheeling, was chief of the Wheeling Fire Department on 9/11. The day started with him having to get his vehicle’s battery jumped in the department’s engine bay. On the way there he heard on the radio that a plane had struck one of the towers.
“I heard someone … in the station and they yelled down into the shop, ‘Turn on the TV you’ve got to see this,'” he said.
“Another plane had struck. As reports were coming in about New York City we also got word that another hit the Pentagon. It was obvious it wasn’t coincidental.”
Johnston remembers getting a call from then-Superintendent Larry Miller about the schools and what he should do. Johnston said he remembered when President Kennedy was shot and how the schools opened their doors and let the students go all at once. This caused chaos.
“I told him that I think it’s best to keep the children in school. That’s the safest place to be. I didn’t want that to ever happen again,” he said, referring to the aftermath of the Kennedy assassination.
Johnston said he and his fellow firefighters watched the coverage on TV all day.
“It had your undivided attention. It was a magnet and you couldn’t get away from it. I remember when one building fell, saying to my secretary, Mary, I think a lot of people just died,” Johnston said, noting each floor in the towers was 220 acres in size.
And he was also worried about the New York City firefighters.
“One man, I had seen him at training events, Ray Downey, was a legend. When the first tower fell, he survived. When the second fell, it got him,” he said.
Johnston said then-Mayor Nick Sparachane that November helped organize a program that would allow NYC firefighters to visit other departments and cities across the country to help decompress from the tragedy. The Wheeling Fire Department ended up hosting Adam Mazy and his wife Dory.
Mazy, he said, was working to evacuate and rescue people from the Marriott hotel next to the towers. He was inside when the towers fell. When the first tower fell it took the Marriott down from 22 floors to 16. Mazy was on the 14th floor. When the second tower fell, the Marriott collapsed more, reducing it to six floors. Two of Mazy’s firefighters were trying to reach the hotel’s roof and were killed.
Those who survived managed to reach out of a window to a flange and slide down a steel column that looked bent to street level. They were 70 feet in the air. They were ordered to evacuate by ferry boat to New Jersey. At that time they didn’t know that the towers had collapsed because of the amount of smoke and dust in the air. They believed the Marriott they were in was struck by something else, Johnston said.
He added that Mazy and his wife enjoyed their time in Wheeling and stayed for a few days.
“He liked Wheeling a lot. He went to Wheeling Coffee & Spice and our department,” he said. “The city was a nice escape for them.”
Johnston said he remembers asking his firefighters if they wanted to volunteer in the rescue and recovery efforts in NYC; everyone did.
“I remember our firefighters wanted to go and help on the pile, but the state fire marshal said we haven’t had any calls for assistance.”
The FDNY had 14,000 firefighters and in addition to 16 volunteer departments to help, he said.
“None went, but our hearts went out to them,” he said.
The attacks had a major impact on the country emotionally and in terms of safety preparedness. Training and spending increased for all first responders across the nation.
And for years, he said, people joined together in unity.
“People were kinder and gentler for quite some time after that,” he said.
Johnston was appointed chief of the fire department in 1996 and retired in 2007.
Sen. Ryan Weld, R-Brooke, was in his senior year at Fairmont State University when the terrorist attacks occurred. He said his roommate’s mother called and told them to turn on their TV and see what was happening in New York City. The students stayed glued to their televisions watching the events unfold in real time.
Later Weld learned from his mother, Roseanne Filberto, that shortly after the towers were hit a man entered his uncle David Cross’ law office in Wellsburg with a gun.
“They didn’t know what his intentions were, but by the grace of God … they escaped from the building and the man was trapped inside and talked out by law enforcement,” Weld said. “I made the decision to come home that day and spent the rest of the day with my family.”
Weld said the attacks had a significant impact on him, leading him to visit a military recruiting office.
“Shortly after I talked to a recruiter and his advice to me was to stay in school, get a degree and become an officer in the military,” he said.
After graduation Weld said he entered the Air Force Reserves and served in Afghanistan from 2005-16, mostly on active duty.
“I was actually in Afghanistan when Osama bin Laden was killed,” Weld said.
He said some celebrated, but mostly people were relieved.
“Some people like myself the entire time I had been in the military we were hunting bin Laden or in Afghanistan. To see it end, there was concern we could face retribution and attacks out of revenge for his killing,” Weld said. “I was on a small base. We never saw those attacks in retaliation for his death. It was an interesting time to be there.”
If 9/11 hadn’t happened, Weld said he doesn’t know if he would have ended up joining the military as it wasn’t in his plans at the time.
“All my grandfathers served, but it wasn’t something I thought a lot about until that day,” he said. “It became something more important to me.”
Weld said annually when the anniversary happens, he typically will rewatch news coverage from that day. He said he also thinks about United Flight 93 going down in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. A group on board the plane decided to overtake the cockpit to prevent the terrorists flying the plane from crashing it into another building in Washington, D.C. A passenger, Todd Beamer, told a telephone operator the group’s plan. Weld said he remembers their bravery and the lives they ultimately saved.
“Todd Beamer … can be heard saying, ‘Let’s roll,'” he said. “I think about Todd Beamer on 9/11.”