September 11, 2001 — 25 Years Later: What I Remember

Twenty-five years.

It is difficult for me to comprehend that September 11, 2001, was twenty-five years ago. Some things about that day have faded with time. Other moments I can still see and hear as clearly as if they happened yesterday.

As I sit here trying to put these memories into words twenty-five years later, I am crying.

Not because I had forgotten and suddenly remembered, but because I never really forgot.

The memories are still remarkably vivid. I can see that ambulance. I can hear the radio traffic. I can see the emergency vehicles stretching behind us and the smoke hanging over Manhattan. I can still hear Jack’s voice saying, “You all be safe now.”

For twenty-five years, those memories have lived somewhere inside me.

Time has passed. Our lives moved forward. The world changed.

But there are some days in a lifetime that never become simply something that happened a long time ago.

September 11, 2001, is one of those days for me.

This isn’t meant to be a history of September 11. There are others far better equipped to tell that history.

This is simply what I remember.

At the time, I was working in the IT department at my beloved Salem Community College. I was also a volunteer EMT with the Carneys Point Fire Department and had been an emergency responder for years.

That morning at the college, we began receiving news that something was happening. We tried desperately to get information. News websites and search engines were overwhelmed. Remember, this was 2001. We didn’t have smartphones in our hands, delivering instant news alerts and live video. There weren’t televisions everywhere on campus.

We pieced together little bits of information, slowly beginning to understand that something devastating was happening.

Then, at approximately 11:30 that morning, the bulky pager I carried on my waist went off.

Twenty-five years ago, that’s how we knew somebody needed us. There was no text message or app notification. You carried a pager, and when it went off, you responded.

All available personnel were being requested at the firehouse to assemble response crews.
The administration at Salem Community College could not have been more supportive. My managers, the college president and everyone in my chain of command understood immediately. They knew I had been called, and they told me to go and to be gone for however long I was needed.

At that point, we expected it could be a considerable amount of time.

I reported immediately to the firehouse. We were told we would be part of the mutual-aid response supporting the incident in New York City. We were given a brief opportunity to go home and gather whatever necessities we thought we might need.

In my rush, I ran into my house, grabbed what I could and hurried back out the front door.

And I twisted my ankle going down the steps.

I knew immediately that I had done some damage. I could feel it.

But there was absolutely no way my ankle was going to keep me from going.

I had my high-top boots. I took some Tylenol.

I was going.

Our ambulance first went to Salem County Memorial Hospital. The hospital essentially gave us access to its storerooms so we could load whatever medical supplies we might need.

From there, emergency units from throughout Salem County assembled at the Woodstown Acme. We were given ice, cases of water and other supplies to take with us.

There is a memory from that parking lot that has stayed with me for twenty-five years.

Jack Ayars—my husband many years later—was the county chief communications officer and a lifelong Salem County firefighter. He wanted nothing more than to respond with “his responders,” but he understood that his responsibility that day was in Salem County. While so many resources were being sent north, someone still had to make certain our own county was protected.

As our convoy began pulling out, I could see Jack’s emergency vehicle blocking traffic so all of our apparatus could get safely onto the road.

One after another, the emergency vehicles pulled out.

Then, after the last vehicle cleared, I heard Jack’s voice over the radio.

“You all be safe now.”

I have never forgotten it.

Salem County is one of the southernmost counties in New Jersey, so we had a long journey north. I was riding in an ambulance only two or three vehicles from the front of our county’s convoy.

As we traveled north on the New Jersey Turnpike, something extraordinary began happening.

We weren’t alone anymore.

As we traveled through the state, more and more emergency vehicles appeared. Gloucester County. Camden County. Burlington County. County after county, department after department.

Fire trucks.

Rescue vehicles.

Ambulances.

Emergency apparatus of every description.

At some point, I looked behind us.

As far back as I could see, there were emergency vehicles.

The northbound roadway had largely come to a standstill except for emergency responders. I remember vehicles traveling south, with people honking their horns as they passed us.

And we kept going north.

Inside our ambulance, there were four of us, and strangely, I don’t remember us talking very much.

We listened.

We listened to the radio traffic. We heard what was happening. We heard the news as another tower fell.

All of us had trained for this kind of thing.

For years, we had trained and drilled for mass-casualty incidents, heavy rescue and disasters. They were scenarios we practiced because someday, somehow, they might happen.

Now they had happened.

We were mentally reaching back through all that training, preparing ourselves for what we believed we were about to do.

We were going to go into the city.

We were going to rescue people.

We were going to treat victims.

We were going to do our jobs.

We didn’t really know what we were going to find.

We just knew we needed to get there.

About three-quarters of the way to the Meadowlands staging area, we could finally see Manhattan in the distance across the Hudson.

And we could see the smoke.

The skyline was visible, but a thick shroud of smoke hung over it.

The closer we got, the quieter I think the four of us became.

There wasn’t much left to say.

When we began exiting toward the Meadowlands, I saw something else I will never forget.

I have never, before or since, seen so much emergency apparatus assembled in one place.

The enormous parking areas surrounding the Meadowlands had been transformed in only a matter of hours. It reminded me of a MASH unit. There were treatment areas and rescue areas. Tents were being erected.

Registration stations, police, troopers and emergency personnel were everywhere.
It was incredibly organized.
I remember being in awe that all of this had been accomplished in just the few hours since the attacks.

Each of us had to register individually. Our officers met with those coordinating the response to determine what our assignments might be.

And then I looked up.

On high-rise buildings around the area, I could see armed personnel positioned above us. I don’t know today exactly which agencies they represented, and after twenty-five years, I won’t pretend that I do.

But I remember what we understood at the time.

There was concern about another attack.

Even the emergency responders gathered to help could potentially become targets.

My son was serving in the military and was in basic training at the time. Standing in that enormous emergency staging area and looking up at those armed guards, I remember exactly what went through my mind:

This is as close to witnessing a war zone as I ever want to be.

And then we waited.

Our officers received information. We listened to radio traffic. We followed whatever news we could get.

Time became strange.

It seemed like forever and an instant at the same time.

We had arrived prepared to work. We had brought medical supplies. Thousands of responders had brought ambulances, rescue equipment and years of training.

We were waiting to be needed.

And slowly, we began to understand why we weren’t.

There weren’t the survivors we had expected.

Once the towers had fallen, the mission had changed.

Some ambulances from the staging area were sent into New York City to help handle the ordinary emergency calls that continued throughout the city while New York’s own fire and EMS resources had been devastated and were consumed by the catastrophe.

But most of us waited.

Eventually, after roughly eighteen hours, we were told there was nothing more our units could do there.

We were being sent home.

It is difficult, even twenty-five years later, to describe that feeling.

We had driven north believing we were going to put our training to work. We were going to rescue people. We were going to treat victims. We were going to help.

Instead, we were told to go home.

I wanted so badly to feel useful.

I didn’t.

There was an emptiness in knowing that there simply wasn’t anything we could do.

The approximately two-hour ride back to Salem County was very quiet.

I think each of us spent those hours alone with our own feelings.

Frustration.

Sadness.

Anger.

When we finally arrived back at the firehouse, there were people waiting for us, but we didn’t stay long. We went home.

And then something began happening in the days and weeks that followed September 11 that I also never want to forget.

People came together.

There was tremendous support for firefighters, EMTs, police officers and the entire emergency-response community. But it was more than that. People supported one another.

For a time, Americans simply seemed united.

For too short a time, we were united.

About a week after the attacks, Salem County held its first Salem County Remembers 9/11 ceremony.

Companies came. Apparatus lined the area. A packed crowd gathered along the shore of the Delaware River.

We came together to remember.

We came together to support one another.

And Salem County kept remembering.

I would go on to serve with Salem County Remembers 9/11 for more than twenty years.

Perhaps that became part of my response, too.

For years, I carried the feeling that on September 11, I had gone north wanting desperately to make a difference and had come home without being able to do what I had gone there to do.

Twenty-five years later, I understand that day differently.

We answered the call.

From a little county at the southern end of New Jersey, we loaded our ambulances and rescue vehicles. Hospitals opened their storerooms. Businesses gave us water and ice. Firefighters and EMTs left their homes and their jobs.

People stayed behind to protect the communities we were leaving. And all across New Jersey, other departments did exactly the same thing.

We didn’t know what awaited us.

We went anyway.

And when there was nothing more we could do, we came home carrying something else—a responsibility to remember.

For more than twenty years, I had the privilege of helping Salem County do exactly that.
There are many things from September 11, 2001, that history will record.

But twenty-five years later, these are the things I remember:

A pager sounding at Salem Community College.

Running out my front door on an injured ankle because I wasn’t going to be left behind.

An ambulance filled with medical supplies.

Cases of water in an Acme parking lot.

Jack stopping traffic as our convoy pulled away.

His voice coming across the radio:

“You all be safe now.”

Emergency vehicles stretching behind us as far as I could see.

Four people sitting quietly in an ambulance.

Manhattan in the distance beneath a shroud of smoke.

Looking up at armed guards and thinking of my son.

Waiting to help people who would never come.

And a very quiet ride home.

But I also remember what came afterward.

I remember people coming together.

I remember Americans supporting one another.

I remember a community gathering on the banks of the Delaware River and promising, in its own way, that what happened would not be forgotten.

And now, twenty-five years later, I sit here with tears running down my face as I write about it.

That surprises me, and yet maybe it shouldn’t.

Because twenty-five years have not diminished the power of these memories.

I can still put myself inside that ambulance.

I can still see that smoke.

I can still feel the uncertainty of going north and the terrible emptiness of coming home.

And I can still hear Jack:

“You all be safe now.”

I don’t care how much time passes. Those memories will always be there.

Twenty-five years later, I still remember.

Salem County still remembers.

And I hope we always will.

A personal reflection by Bessie Ayars