21 years later, Sept 11 still somberly marked

A year after the 20th anniversary of Sept 11, the commemorations of that ill-fated day will continue in earnest along with the organizations that work in its memory.

Family members of 9/11 victims will once again gather in the Memorial's plaza in Lower Manhattan on Sunday to read aloud the names of those killed in the 9/11 terrorist attacks and in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

"The 21st anniversary commemoration ceremony will take place on the Memorial plaza and focus on an in-person reading of the names by family members. Throughout the ceremony, we will observe six moments of silence, acknowledging when each of the World Trade Center towers was struck and fell and the times of the attack on the Pentagon and the crash of Flight 93," according to the website of the 9/11 Memorial & Museum in New York.

The program will commence at 8:30 am EDT, and the first moment of silence will be observed at 8:46 am, the time when the first hijacked plane was flown into the North Tower of the World Trade Center in Manhattan on Sept 11, 2001.

That plane was American Airlines Flight 11, a Boeing 767 aircraft that had departed Logan Airport in Boston at 7:59 am en route to Los Angeles with a crew of 11 and 76 passengers, along with five of the 19 al-Qaida hijackers, who had commandeered four planes that day.

The 9/11 attacks killed 2,977 people, injured more than 25,000, and left many people with substantial long-term health consequences. Infrastructure and property damage totaled $10 billion. It is the deadliest terrorist attack in human history and the single deadliest incident for firefighters and law enforcement officers, with 340 firefighters and 72 police officers killed.

In addition to the New York memorial and museum, other tributes will take place at the Pentagon Memorial in Arlington County, Virginia, and the Flight 93 National Memorial at the plane's crash site in Stonycreek Township, Pennsylvania.

The US and its allies responded to the attacks by launching the war in Afghanistan, where al-Qaida mastermind Osama bin Laden was based. That two-decade war concluded with a chaotic, deadly withdrawal of US forces in August 2021.

US President Joe Biden will deliver remarks and lay a wreath at the Pentagon on Sunday.

The hijacked American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the west side of the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia, causing a partial collapse of the US military headquarters' side. There were 184 fatalities in that intentional crash.

First lady Jill Biden will speak Sunday at the Flight 93 observance in Pennsylvania.

Vice-President Kamala Harris and her husband will attend the New York memorial.

On Saturday, Sept 10, the museum in New York will close to the public at 2 pm so that members of the 9/11 community — including first responders, rescue, recovery, and relief workers, families of those who have died from 9/11 illnesses, and Lower Manhattan residents and businesses — can visit exclusively.

"The 20 years after 9/11 decimated the responder community. The next 20 years is going to eradicate the 9/11 responders," John Feal, founder of the FealGood Foundation, an advocacy group for 9/11 responders and survivors, told Fox News Digital. He is fighting for more funding from Congress for responders and survivors harmed on that day.

A retired construction worker who lost part of his foot while working at Ground Zero after the attacks, Feal started the foundation to benefit responders who have suffered from numerous health issues.

In Jersey City, New Jersey, the city will commemorate the anniversary with its annual "Reflections" ceremony at the city's 9/11 memorial, across the Hudson River from where the World Trade Center's Twin Towers once stood. A speaking program will consist exclusively of surviving family and friends of the 38 Jersey City residents who were lost that day.

Sept 11 also changed air travel forever.

"If you think back to 9/11, the 9/11 terrorists all started at small airports like John Wayne (in Santa Ana, California). They went to bigger airports like Newark or Boston, so every airport in the system is important because they all feed into one another," Nico Melendez, a retired Transportation Security Administration spokesperson, told KABC in Los Angeles.

"On 9/11, 3 percent of checked bags were screened for explosives, only 3 percent. Today, and shortly after 9/11, 100 percent of bags were screened for explosives," he said.

That terrible day also has inspired the creation of many charities, such as the Tunnel to Towers Foundation. On Wednesday, it announced the establishment of the Tunnel to Towers 9/11 Institute, the organization's expanded effort to educate and inform future generations of the 9/11 fallen and the heroic actions that took place on that day.

The foundation was created in honor of FDNY firefighter Stephen Siller, who served with Brooklyn Squad 1 and died heroically that day. Siller, 34, was on his way to play golf with his three older brothers when he heard about the World Trade Center attack. He called his wife‚ turned around‚ and headed back to the firehouse to collect his gear.

Siller drove his truck to the entrance of the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel but it had already been closed for security purposes. He then strapped 60 pounds of gear onto his back and raced on foot through the tunnel to the Twin Towers, where he died while helping to save others. He left behind his wife, Sally, and five children.

Siller's brother, Frank, is one of the founders of the foundation and serves as its chairman and CEO. One of the main focuses of the foundation is to build mortgage-free smart homes "for our most catastrophically injured veterans and first responders".

Another 9/11 museum in New York, the 9/11 Tribute Museum in Lower Manhattan, was forced to close on Aug 17, a casualty of a steep drop in visitors due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Founded by the September 11th Families' Association, it opened in September 2006 in the Liberty Deli, opposite the World Trade Center site and next to the FDNY's Engine 10 and Ladder 10 Firehouse. In 2017, it moved to 92 Greenwich Street.

It had collected more than 2,500 pieces of memorabilia — "from family photographs to an airplane window retrieved from Ground Zero and a menu from the Windows on the World Restaurant, found in a nearby street — to chart both the horror of the day and the journey of recovery and reconstruction that continues", according to a Wall Street Journal op-ed.

Before the pandemic, the volunteer-staffed Tribute Museum averaged 300,000 visitors per year; in 2021, the number fell to 26,000. The museum had no endowment and relied mostly on admission income.

Unable to cover its $2.5 million operating budget and unsuccessful in appeals to New York state officials and foundations, the museum had no other options but to close, the Journal reported. The collection has been moved online.