25 years after 9/11, Middle Georgia recalls day of attacks

MACON, Ga. (WPGA) - It has been 25 years since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks — a day when thousands of Americans lost their lives. Around 100 million Americans are too young to remember the 9/11 attacks. Georgia was not part of the threat, but those living here still find themselves recounting the events of that day to the next generation.

Emily Fitzgerald now lives and works in Macon, but grew up about 20 minutes from the Pentagon, where her mother worked for more than 30 years.

“She did lose some coworkers and some employees that I grew up with, these were people who I knew since I was a baby,” Fitzgerald said.

When Fitzgerald was dropped off at school on Sept. 11, 2001, things seemed normal until they didn’t.

“I was sitting in my eighth grade algebra class. My principal walked in and made a comment about how one of the Twin Towers had been hit by a plane, then a few minutes later she talks about the second tower and we are like that’s so crazy,” Fitzgerald said.

Cell phones were not as common at the time, and news took longer to travel.

“We didn’t know that she was not at work until a few hours after the fact,” Fitzgerald said.

Fitzgerald’s mother had taken the day off.

Stories like Fitzgerald’s are still bringing people to remembrance ceremonies across the nation and in Middle Georgia 25 years later.

The city of Macon-Bibb held its annual 9/11 remembrance ceremony at 8:45 a.m. at Public Safety Park in downtown Macon.

A separate 9/11 memorial ceremony was held inside the Museum of Aviation in Warner Robins. Speakers included Warner Robins Mayor LaRhonda Patrick and Col. Johari J. Hemphill of Robins Air Force Base and others.

“I was a freshman at Georgia Southern University ... I walked across the hall that was filled with screens and I saw the planes hit the first tower and the second tower, the World Trade Center, the Pentagon all attacked,” Patrick said.

“Think about the person who left that morning and kissed their family goodbye, think about the person who went to work that day expecting an ordinary Tuesday,” Hemphill said.

The World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, mark where nearly 3,000 people lost their lives.

Fitzgerald said what happened after the attacks helped communities unite.

“Sept. 12 was a very surreal day, everybody was so nice and it didn’t matter what they look like, what they drove, it didn’t matter anything, it was the most amazing sense of community,” Fitzgerald said. “We all came together.”