NEW YORK — On the eve of the 25th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, New Yorkers and people from around the world converged in a spectacle of hope and grief at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum.
For Jim and JoAnn Trembath of Monte Sereno, California, the 8-acre National September 11 Memorial & Museum that now occupies the area where the original Twin Towers once stood at the center of the new 16-acre World Trade Center complex is a symbol of America’s resilience.
Standing west of the north reflecting pool on the plaza Thursday, the couple, who are both in their 80s, recalled how they were at home getting ready for work when they saw the first plane hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center on TV at 8:46 a.m. Jim knew something was wrong after United Airlines Flight 175 hit the South Tower 17 minutes later. “I told JoAnn this is not an accident.
This is terrorism,” he told The Christian Post. When they traveled to New York two months later, the couple was devastated by what they saw. “St. Paul’s Church was covered with ash. Not a growing thing. It was desolate,” Jim said, explaining how Manhattan’s oldest surviving church building became a staging point for emergency services in the aftermath of the attack.
He recalled waiting in a line of thousands of people looking for family members at ground zero that had been fenced in by then. “You walked along the fencing; there were all these notes, ‘Have you seen my dad?’ trying to locate people. We could still see smoke coming from the site. It was very emotional,” he said.
Though they have returned to Lower Manhattan several times since the terrorist attacks, the couple agree that life has