David Crabtree's 9/11 reflection

On the 13th anniversary, David Crabtree reflects on Sept. 11, 2001.
Posted 9/11/2014, 9:02:00 PM Updated 8/23/2021, 2:36:05 AM

I don't think there's anyone in this country that doesn't

remember where they were 13 years ago today when they

first heard the news that we have been attacked but

there was a major crash at the World Trade Center

I picked up my daughter at the airport on the

last scheduled flight to land in Raleigh came back to

the newsroom and one of our executive producers Randall Kerr

said his face was ashen and he said it's a

stump

I said what are you talking about He said the

World Trade Center has fallen

It's just a stump

The whole newsroom was almost in shock

We had to do our jobs and we were doing

our jobs

We deployed a crew to new york

We deployed a crew to Washington

We were on the air constantly in between what the

network was doing

We couldn't believe what had happened

I found out later that I had two very good

friends At the time in the basement of Trinity Wall

Street and the fiscal church right across from ground zero

They were in the basement of the church when each

tower fell in both times I found out later they

thought they were going to die because the noise was

so overwhelmingly loud they could hear each floor hitting 100

10 floors

All that happened by the way in about 12 13

seconds One of them realized there were 30 Children at

the daycare center across the street ran out to help

rescue those Children which they did but it's those types

of memories knowing the lives lost knowing the first responders

whose lives were lost or who survived and for everything

or forever changed

Those are the things we remember

I remember far more than we may be going to

war again

Far more than thousands who died in war since then

Far more than we've created this normality of killing

Uh it's a day to be thankful for what we

have and not to be greedy for what we don't

have but that we can see the sunshine and so

many others don't

It's a day we will never forget