Dateline NBC
Dateline NBC

Facing Ground Zero: A Dateline Special

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In this Dateline Special, New Yorkers whose experiences were captured in real time on September 11, 2001, reflect on what they saw, what they survived and how the attacks indelibly shaped their lives...

Transcript

EN

Hi, I'm Kate Snow and BC News Anchor and host of the NBC News Podcast, The Dr...

This month I'm sitting down with actor, writer, producer, Brendan Hunt. Most of you know him as coach-beard from Ted Lasso, but there is so much more to his story. We sit down, we talk about all of it from his bumpy upbringing, to his years in improv comedy, and how a Hollywood rejection opened the door to co-creating Ted Lasso. It's an open, funny conversation about perseverance, creativity, and the winding road that brought him right here.

We hope you'll join us for the drink, listen and follow wherever you get your podcasts. They're hurt about noise, and they're hurt about women's screen.

9/11, as you've never seen it.

Well, wasn't. I was founded like a missile. It was like an explosion, blast blew everywhere.

7 survivors and the moments they can never forget.

I had my hand out, and I popped it. It was filled with sadness. The thick smoke, it just engulfed me. I saw a woman that somehow her clothes had been burned onto her body. It was like looking into the gates of hell.

Our cameras found them on 9/11. This is a terrorist attack. She's this. In America? Tonight they take us back to that day.

So confused, you could see, virtually spawned us, walking out of the cloud. They had to know that the comrades had been caught in that. Why me? Why did I survive? I was haunted.

You'll never leave my mind.

Facing Ground Zero.

Good evening from Ground Zero on this, the 25th anniversary of 9/11.

The scale of it was incomprehensible. The deadliest terrorist attack in history with nearly 3,000 people killed. And yet for those who live through it, the day unfolded right here as a series of harrowing moments and split second off in self-sacrificing decisions. Tonight, in footage we uncovered in our NBC news archive,

some never before seen and some difficult to watch. You'll meet ordinary people, pulled into chaos by chance, to work with others, by choice, and a fight for survival. It is Tuesday the 11th day of September. Let's find out about that election day forecast. Actually, he's looking pretty good.

No excuse. In 2001, I was a cameraman at WNBC. Most of the clear sky. That day, I found myself on an assignment in Lower Manhattan. A lot of fun.

A polling place on a smaller assignment, a normal assignment, because it was holding day.

So I went back to the car to pack up and I heard a loud noise. And I heard a woman scream. I turned to where she was looking. And I saw a hole in the North Tower, a slit. I thought it was a helicopter that had smashed into the building.

We didn't have cell phones back then. We had radios. So I called the station. And I said, "You know, there's a hole in the building." And he says, "You did."

Oh, no. It was a great morning. Should be honest with you.

Woeywa was standing in front of my desk as always.

We used to banter a lot. I remember vividly. She said, "Good morning, Woeywa." And I said, "Wait a minute." Suddenly this morning, you said, "Good morning, you are being nice."

I said, "Why?" And then she said, "Don't start with me." She said, "You know, it's too early in the morning. I'm not going to do that with you." And then.

And when I heard that, I was like, kind of stunned. Then I felt myself a sway. I'm on a 80-second floor. You don't sway on 80-second floor. One of my co-workers came in screaming.

Saying, "Fire, fire, the elevator's on fire." I know if I'm going to cover this thing, that the zone is likely going to be frozen by the police. And I need to get in there, and get as much as I can.

I put on a battery belt. I put the camera on and I started rolling. And as I went down rolling, I saw people in distress.

Women get into a car with somebody

and just bury her face in her hands. She was in tears. I saw people consoling each other. Then I saw God. He was trying to explain to me.

Do you see how that happened? What had happened? No. I heard, you know what I heard? He was very detailed.

He was intense. I heard before that happened. What was it? I was sounded like a missile. It sounded like a flame.

Like the understand the sound before it hit something.

And it just like. And then impact. It was like an explosion. I decided that I had to walk down nearer to where the grocery streamers

were staging to help enter people. As I walked down, Simon started coming. Fire trucks, police cars, hard department police.

All hands on deck type day. I saw a woman somehow reclosed and burned onto her body and melted. And I don't know if that happened on the street or where in the building that it happened.

But she was intended to. I was honestly trying to figure out what to be afraid of. Something going to come off the building and fall on me.

I was afraid. There was fear, you know. There was fear. There were bad to my death. Gathered my belongings.

And as usual, we got to go. He said, "Okay, let's go."

And we went down the first day of case we came to.

Inside the staircase, there was water. You know, water was just flowing. I presume it was some fire sprinkler that went off. There was this sense of urgency.

But panic, no. The lights were still on. And people were still walking down. You know, calmly down and say it's like it was a fire drill. There was nothing to alert me to say that.

Something horrible happened. I worked for the Port Authority Police Department of New York and New Jersey. I was a commanding officer of the Western Zone, which included the World Trade Center. My task was to set up an incident command center

in a lot of the building one. The North Tower, coordinating with the various responding Port Authority Police units, FTNY units, and the NYPD.

We had units going up into the towers to start the evacuation process

and to gather information. We got reports from the fire department that it was an inferno. They had units up there battling it where they couldn't get a hold of it.

The fire department, the first responders

and the police, they were on it. And that was reassuring. There was a guy behind me, and I turned to him with a camera rolling in. I asked him, "What did you see?

What did you see?" Right out to the window, and I looked out and she smoked. The next thing I saw, I mean, you got to look at it. The bottom elevated to the glass. I just cleaned and exploded out the front of the world.

I went straight to the glass floor everywhere. And the second plane came in and hit. And I turned and I got the fireball. And the explosion. And that was terrifying.

And it was then that everybody knew. Absolutely knew. This was not an accident. When I responded to the World Trade Center in 2001, our primary goal was to see if anybody made it to the roof.

It was also to advise headquarters of the situation so that we could get the resources up there that we needed. I would carry a camera all the time. It took a couple of shots real quick. The streams of smoke coming from the building

were from people using furniture. Whatever they could get to try and break those windows. People that were trying to get air will get out. While we were up there, we had no idea

a second plane was in route.

Nothing came over the police radio.

Nothing came over the FAA radio.

And then it hit. Another one just hit. A very large plane.

Also directly over my building.

And there's been another collision. The fireball was you.

That plane punched right through the building.

And we knew there's no way that two planes could hit two separate towers on the same day. It could not be a coincidence. We could feel that the impact in here. It was an explosion up there.

At that point, we know there was a terrorist event that was by accident a plane hit. We knew that we had to evacuate these people to fire was out of control. I moved our command center over to building number five.

We had 40-30 police, quite a copy. New York City police units. EMTs. We're looking to help this exodus of people coming down through the towers.

I'm not going to say stampede, but they were running out of the building at that point. I've come to rise before. Had my band shot at? But this was as near to more coverage as I'd ever come.

And that's when the level I think of panic went up.

I'm across the street for the Marianne. You started talking about how can I get out of here?

A second airplane, a 727 just ran into the building.

Where do I go? I'm going to get out of the city. I'm going to be in the second building. We were counting down 37-floor, 35-floor. The building shook, but we didn't know what it was.

I'm just going. I want to step out of time. There was water on the stairs. I kind of slipped. I was done.

I was tired. I couldn't step it on more. And I thought we were too tired to go.

She grabbed my hand and he put me on the roof.

We're going to go. This staircase was packed. I would look up and I would see something like a spiral. Fill with people. Going as fast as your eyes can see.

While going downstairs, fire fighters were going up. Occasionally I would part one of them in the back. I said, you guys are doing a heroic job. They just seem very sober. The expression on the faces really haunted me for a long time.

That was haunting me. So yeah. The aircraft was fully loaded with fuel. That fuel went throughout that whole floor. And totally engulfed the building from one end to the other.

I didn't realize until I got the pictures back that there was actually a guy on the outside of the building. If I would have realized that I would have called in the larger helicopter to try and do something. But I didn't realize it at the time. I had the camera kind of cradled in my arms shooting up.

You could see debris and papers on the building. In the midst of that debris, you saw an object that moved after it didn't flutter in the air. And then another move faster and passed on to debris. Somebody said, those are people.

And when they landed, the sound was, you know, it's not something that you forget. It was just loud bangs. We didn't know what it was. I was able to look up and actually witness people

jumping out of the building. It was traumatic. It was traumatic.

And it'll just never leave my mind.

There was a woman near me. And she was crying and screaming at the same time. You know, why don't they do something? They put something underneath them to try to catch them. One of the officers said, "You can't handle it, go inside."

Just go inside. Go inside. Go inside. Go inside.

I talked about their families on the other side.

How they were trying to manage that. Some people would think it was suicide. And there was no way that was suicide.

Somebody was trying to save themselves from an inferno.

There was no way to help those people. There was no answer for that. And we're back. Streaming on peacock. And I present to you the award-winning staff of the Toledo Truth Teller.

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The paper. New season. Now streaming only on peacock. This show gives me a reason to laugh. Hey guys, Willie Geist here.

Reminding you to check out the Sunday Sit Down podcast. On this week's episode, I get together with the man behind many of the biggest hits in popular music.

Benny Blanco to talk about the secret to making a great song.

And to his happy marriage with Selena Gomez.

Also his new book, "F Failure."

You can get my conversation with Benny right now for free. Wherever you download your podcasts. The midterms are just around the corner. And it's safe to say there's been a lot of noise about the election. Well, now it's time to lock in.

What's really on the ballot this November? And what's really its stake? We'll get you up to speed on all of it. I'm NBC News Chief White House correspondent Garrett Hague and every Saturday from now to election day. I'm hosting here's the scoop election edition.

We'll talk to some of the smartest voices about the top issues that are going to define this election. From President Trump's influence to the war with Iran. To affordability and AI in politics. We're diving into all of it. And what it could all mean for the direction of the country.

Join me every Saturday. Just search here's the scoop wherever you listen and follow now. Both hours had been hit. I called into the station and they told me there's a live truck down there. Meet them.

Don't forget this. Walter will be there. And soon we started going to be pan after the scoop shot on the ground. Walter Perez was one of the morning reporters at WNBC. I'm ready when you are.

Can we start at this live site? He was recapping what has happened, what he knew. Okay, two blocks away from where the whole thing happened. And this entire area has been cordoned off. And people that have been working in nearby buildings haven't told to evacuate.

That's what this mass accident is to my left hand side.

Since the fire was getting very large, the Port Authority commanders decided to send North airport officers to help in the evacuation. We trained in aircraft fires. Whether it be an engine fire or got for a bit of crash. And when I'm actually going two blocks away from the wheelchair,

I parked in front of a building that was probably 40 stories tall. I figured the vehicle would be protected. It was like raining papers. Full sheets of paper were raining down constantly from the towers. They were still standing and burning very, very rapidly.

We were told, you guys from the airport. You're the next group to go in as soon as we get air breathing equipment. We were going to be dispatched into the North Tower. We were putting on our aircraft bunker gear, which is a silver suit that protects us from very hot fires

with sort of like going to war, but in New York City. I work for the fire department of New York. I was an EMT. I was a rookie. I was nine months on the job.

That day, Ronnie Cohen was my partner. Ronnie was funny.

He just never wanted to like leave the job.

And he just loved it so much. He said, "Okay, dispatch is going to send us down to the wheelchair center." We were actually really close. We were only like a few hundred feet away.

I'm going to start the interviews and then pan up. Walter was on the air live. He actually interviewed a couple of people. To my right, we have two witnesses. And Marna, you work across the street, tell me exactly what you saw on the street.

I saw, there's maybe about 30 or 40 people covered with bandages and blood. It looks like a lot of them were either on the floor of one of the exchanges. There's actually, oh my god. We're not sure exactly what happened, but there was another explosion

on the far side of one of the buildings where we're standing.

I remember something that felt like a deep rumble and roar.

I showed that was another explosion or if that was advanced to the parade.

But I don't think it ever occurred to us that it was the building coming down.

We were almost like the lobby. When suddenly we heard it, like boom. I thought our buildings were shaking. I thought the building I was in was for. The discussion went, like shhhhh.

And it looked like the people were tumour wheels. They were flying past the door. Because the pressure of what was going on. At one point, it goes to a dark. We cannot see each other.

I had my hand out. And I caught it. It was filled with sand. Inside me, I was praying.

God, please send me from this.

And I heard definitely. And I remember just praying. Please don't let it hurt me. I remember saying that really loud.

I like to describe it as a thousand free trains coming down.

It was like a roar in the dust. The dust, everything was dust-tating. You couldn't see it. To be honest, there was like a deer in the headlights. And we were breathing that in.

I wish I had put my jacket over my face so I could breathe. But it was too late. I could hear little pieces of cement hitting my jacket. I knew that I had to get some fresh air. At this point, as you could tell, there's absolute pandemonium in this area.

Because of what had just happened. Exactly what I can't confirm. We were trying to make sense of it. I'm sorry. No, you're upstairs.

A lot of us trying to make sense of it. We were trying to impose reason on these scenes, and it was breaking all the rules. There's a massive pool of snow coming in our direction.

The police are telling us to move immediately.

Got it off, let's go. Okay, we're being told to shut off. We'll get in the back and contact as quickly as possible. They were just thick black smoke. So we really couldn't see too far ahead of us.

We just saw people coming out of the smoke just kind of walking towards us. We were like, come to our ambulance. Let's clean you up. You need an oxygen. And just more and more people just started coming out of the dust.

So we were just loading people into the back of our ambulance. Just to get them out of that thick smoke. So they could breathe. It was still dark. It was still windy.

Until after a while, it started coming down. I heard the voice. Is anybody alive? I said yes, I can hear you. And then the voice said, okay, look for my flashlight.

So I was heading toward him. I was holding deafness hand. So what going, what going, the ceiling of the lobby had collapsed. So we were picking our steps. You know that to just get to the world we'll be able to go outside.

Myself and definitely what probably the last person that came out. We came out and was like a ghost sound. They're very, very, very intimate. And now that fire fighter, it took us to the ambulance and it gave us water. I couldn't get the water to my mouth.

I stopped going like this. I definitely didn't hit my hand. He helped me training on my mouth. And then I drank some. If you mean this after that, I stabilized the lobby.

When I first came out, I was so tired.

I remember laying on his wall. I was so scared. I was so tired. I had no way into it. The first thing I did was I found the fire truck.

I had a little bit of trickle water coming out of it. I watched my face. Peter Cune was my partner. We were right there. We worked together for 20 years.

So friend and colleague, we stayed together the whole time. And we just started to get our breath. We ran into reporters. That wanted to know what happened. Where were you guys going to happen?

At our command post, the Port Authority command post. Yeah. On the right on Dessie. And West Street. The whole about a 20-story section.

I just came to the street.

Into the street.

I was amazed that I was able to speak because my lungs were filled with that smoke.

We weren't quite sure exactly what happened.

And they us, us, was anyone injured. Any idea what it was? I lost the light book there. I bad. I got here 20 minutes ago from the North Airport.

I really don't have any count. But there were a lot of people up there. I had a clock in the morning. Everyone's at work on it. The towers were filled with people.

We were going to head back down there and see what we could do to help the walking wounded or whatever we could do. I know it's a strong building and the outside walls are holding up that building. But I wouldn't put a test that thing coming down. Are you alright to go back?

I'll go back to you. You guys going back? Yes. It's our job. Dangerous.

Dad, it is. We worry about that other tower. Personally, I am. But you're going back anyway. I got fellow offices that might be trapped.

I'm trying to be a hero.

But I think if you were in this position,

you'd do the same thing. I would only hope that you would. Good luck. Good shot. I'm walking away.

We couldn't just stay back and not do something. It was a two or three block walk and looking at the North Tower from my vantage point was like looking into the gates of hell. The wind was feeding the fire. Bright into that hole and then peck point.

It was horrific. Thank you. Mr. Mars, you got an arrow. I know we got the word Mr. Wright. You got an arrow.

It's the opposite. We're doing that duty. Back up. We got ropes and down. Particularly the offices and the firefighters up into towers.

They knew what the danger was. You could hear it in their voices. The urgency.

They were working hard to get the people down to stairwells.

Some people stayed on seams and helped some disabled people. We heard that over the radio. They were not mentioning names. This office went upstairs because he thought he could get up higher in the different stairwell. Nobody said, "I'm out of here."

This is two dangerous. They all stayed at their post. I knew a lot of them. They were the close of my 27-year career. I did recognize their voices.

And also I knew that they were up there. We were still just treating people that were just coming to us. And Ronnie, my partner, said, "I'm going to go and see if I can find anybody else in the towers." So stay here. I was kind of nervous.

I was like, "You're leaving me?" But yeah, he says, "I'll be back. I'm just going to go see if I can find anybody else." You're just kind of like an auto pilot. Just so much is going on.

You don't really think. After some time at pass, I was heading down towards the tower to see if I could find him. Everybody just started running the other way.

They were saying, "The second tower is coming down.

The second tower is coming down." I couldn't go any further because the thick smoke. It just engulfed me. Monday, September 21st, on NBC, the new season of the voice begins with an epic three-night premiere. I'm so excited.

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After the first tower had fallen,

and we finally got out, I decided to go back in to see if I could find some more survivors. I saw an arm sticking out of the rubble. It was a bloody arm. And it was fired on it. Also, so it was a raging fire.

Myself and a firefighter, and I believe in FBI agent,

we were able to dig them out and carry in quite a ways back to that building.

Of course, the street was a firefighter who yelled to us.

Watch out, the next building is coming down. All the telephone lines are jammed up as people are trying to communicate. We were a couple blocks away on the air live. They're trying to move the media to a safe area, so we can do proper reporting. Everybody know exactly what's going on for now, back to you.

And we begin to collapse. The debris and the dust, everything started cascading north. Just a moment ago, the entire top of the building collapsed. One guy, he was immensely frustrated. He was a firefighter. He threw his axe down.

He threw his helmet down. And you can see how frustrated they were. You can see the plume of smoke is coming in our direction. Let's go out of here, Ralph.

We're going to leave because the smoke is coming right at us.

As the debris was coming towards us, I took behind the truck with the camera still alive. And I held my shot as the debris came up the street. I wanted to stay alive as long as I could. I had to box up my emotions and document this.

Rather than standing on the street and screaming. I was almost right on top of it. I pretty much got a sequence of the north tower going down. It was devastating for the people on the ground. Because the plumes of smoke and dust that were going through the streets.

The fireman said, "Run, run." And his belly was smoke was behind him. He dusted the wind, the whole thing caught up with us. Suddenly, he was very dark again.

And I remember us running and then somehow our hands broke loose.

And I remember seeing this belly we spoke coming at me. And I remember praying. We were caught out in the open. Myself, the firefighters, and then there's unconscious man who he just extracted.

I was never so scared in my life.

I mean, I thought I was dead. Of course, your first instinct at that point in time is to save yourself. I was at the world for the time being desk when the first helicopter lapse. Tell me what happened to her. When we were carrying an injured person out myself and about four firemen.

And, unfortunately, that's when it built in two collapsed. It described what happened at the moment of impact. It just rained building. And I happened to dive on her to the issue of vehicle. I was very alive for 15 minutes until I scrambled out.

How did you get out when you entered the trap? To be 15-20 minutes and digging out. I'm not sure what happened to the other people. The other firemen were with us. We were back in there trying to bring people out.

We knew the second one was about to come down. But we were lifting one person. When it came down, we all just ran for our lives. The firefighters, the civilian that we extracted from building number four.

The FBI agent, I never found out what happened to them.

I was scared because I was new. Plus, I don't know when my partner is. So I'm thinking something bad happened to him. Then I'm thinking, how do I get around? What do I do? Where do I go?

You've got a lot of people tugging at you. Help me help me. Somebody said, come help this firefight. He has a broken leg. And then when I went to go to my ambulance to get it, it was gone. And I actually ran into Roger, a paramedic that I knew. We'd linked up because he had lost his partner as well.

And I had lost my partner. And he said, hey, you know, I have an ambulance. Let's just work together and see what we can do. So we just kind of drove up as close to, you know, the twin towers as we could. And somehow we ended up in like the bubble of it all. We had supplies and whoever, you know, needed help.

Mostly firefighters, you know, looking for survivors. If they needed any help, they would just come to our ambulance. You could see firefighters and grocery responders walking out of the cloud,

Covered in the powder and the debris.

They had to know that their comrades had been caught in that.

And they didn't have any kind of recourse. There was nothing that they could do. All we could do is to observe. When I captured what I thought I could, and I wanted to take stuff back to the building, I realized that my friend, my colleague, was on the 104th floor.

A man named Bill Steckman. Back then he would capture my signal. The voice was so nurturing. And he was so kind. He didn't make it. He didn't make it. [Music]

No, well, we're not as smokey as anything. I was in a mistwater smoke. Any message to your family?

Because I'm not okay, I think I'm okay, I'm okay.

First of all, I felt safe as when I sit on a side with two reporters. My name is Mooyua, O'Nibogue. I did not know that the tower had collapsed. At the back of my mind, you know, I was thinking, we go back to the office. It is a second floor. I definitely will have quite a story to take the other walkers.

We're going to get to the bottom line.

Why didn't we have it? Why played it a little bit? Why a plane is hijacked? Excuse me? All we understand is that plane might have been hiding.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. This didn't happen from chance. Did you say Paris, hijacked a plane, and to the building? No, I couldn't even fan them. No, no.

I was so confused. I just could not digest that on that beautiful day. That something that awful happened. I'm also a taxi in O'Nibogue.

I'm telling you what the truth is going to do.

I guess right now because you have the courage to run the building. This is a terrorist attack. Jesus. In America? I don't know what to say.

I don't know what to say. They come out to find out a terrorist at this. I can't even be anxious. It's senseless. People die since.

You mean you're coming? You're building fell down senselessly. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know. I was spared. To this very day, I asked myself,

"How come I never looked back?"

Just see what was going on behind me. I never looked back. All that time. I was going for hours. I never looked back.

Thank God we are alive. That we got out of here. And my heart goes to the people who are poor. It's the end of the building when it came down. It would take a long time for me to accept that the tower was down.

The building was a village. It was a community in its own right. To just say, "Down, come on." After we were at the rubble for a few hours, we just kind of sat outside and street just to decompress a little.

I guess the shop is just hitting us now, I guess. And it was at this time that I found Ronnie. I gave him the biggest hug. I think it's been like four or five hours since I last saw him, running into the towers.

He talked to my partner. He was the one that brought him to the classroom. I couldn't believe that he was alive. But somehow he made it out and found us. Then the three of us started triaging out of the back of the ambulance together.

You know, only Ronnie can tell his story. Fortunately, he's not with us anymore. He had pneumonia plenty of times after that day.

And yeah, I think that's what he finally succumb to.

If I was there earlier, I might have been inside the building myself. Our commanders made a decision. They didn't want to send anyone back to the site,

Because they knew that they lost too many men already.

Officers ran into those buildings to help.

And they had no idea that the buildings were going to collapse.

No one did. We drove back into New York Airport. And we couldn't believe what happened. Why me? Why did I survive? And these other men that had young families?

Why did they have to perish? They were friends. They were colleagues. How did 30 families lose 37 officers that day? My command, we had 19 officers respond

at the 19 at the end of the day, six of us were alive.

It was an incredible heavy hit.

For years, I had survivors killed. All of those people, why me? And remember, my sister said to me, "You know, I stepped in the road back around. They did the name calling."

It's not Walter K. Hill.

She said, "You know, I could have been down near seeing you in the name."

She says, "But I'm so blessed that I'm not." We were, he was determined to live. He pulled me down 35 sisters. He would not let go. And I called him, "My hero," you know,

and he laughed about it all the time. You are. As far as dying, I was not ready to contemplate that. Now you live on worse.

The most impactful thing that happened in my life, probably it will be. I still don't guys say it live. The totality of the whole thing

never sunk in until later on.

I can't believe that 25 years have gone by. The World Trade Center today, it's in a spot that's a sacred place. It's also a tribute to our country that we rebuilt something

to take the place of the World Trade Center. It's not way around. It's trauma. I mean, I've allowed myself to cry. It bugs me.

And, uh, move forward. I'm not bleeding. But I've been imprinted with this horrible scene. And it still impacts me. In those moments,

as horrific as they were, we as people were unified, we were open to helping each other and hoping and learn those lessons without having something as horrific as that.

When I look back on that day, I think of widows. I think of husbands. I think of children. I think of parents.

All the funnals I've been to since that day and how those families were affected by that. And I remember the officers' faces. It was a beautiful day. We were just going about our normal everyday life.

Like anyone else is doing today. And it happened. After I left me hurt a lot, I never forget. And that's why I'm here today.

I'll never forget the faces

and the people who put their lives worth that day. Here in New York City, there were around 5,753 people perished on 9/11.

We also remember the 184 who died at the Pentagon

and the 40 passengers aboard the United Flight 93 who forced their plane down in Pennsylvania as well as the many who have died since from 9/11 related illnesses. For those who watched from afar,

memories of all those victims will surely linger. So with resiliency and bravery, we witness that day, attestive it to the best of us in the worst of times.

That's all for tonight. I'm Lesterholt. Thank you for joining us. For all of us at NBC News. Good night.

at 10-9 Central, only on NBC.

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