Ten years ago. Wow. I guess every generation has their “I’ll always remember where I was when” moment and this was mine.

I was three months in to my photo internship at the Birmingham News in Alabama. I was in the office checking my assignments when our photo secretary mentioned a small plane had hit the World Trade Center in New York. We joked about it at first wondering how in the world a pilot could miss seeing that. Then we turned on the tv. 

The director of photography arrived in the photo office and people stopped in to watch coverage as they ate their breakfast from the cafeteria down the hall. As soon as the word that all flights were grounded was given, I was off to the airport. Just as I gathered my gear and headed out the door, the first tower fell. From what I glimpsed on the way out, it looked as if just the top chunk of building fell. It wasn’t until I was in the car listening to NPR that I realized the entire building had collapsed. And then the second tower fell.

When I arrived at the airport I was greeted by a lot of security. K-9 units were all over inside. Flights were being diverted and landing, leaving passengers confused about what to do next. Some planes were too big for the jetways and had to wait on the tarmac until stairs could be found. At the time, the Birmingham airport had no televisions broadcasting the 24- hour news cycle. The passengers I spoke with said the pilots hadn’t told them why they were landing in Birmingham. For them, I was the first to deliver the news of what had happened. I still wonder how many of those people had a loved one die that day. To how many was I the bearer of horrific, life altering news?

There wasn’t much to photograph at the airport. Sold out signs at the car rental counters were plentiful, as were passengers sitting on luggage, studying road maps, calling loved ones. I shot what I could and headed back downtown to process my film because it had been decided to print an Extra edition that day.

Back at the office as I was poring over images on the wire I kept thinking ‘where are the images from street level?’ Everything we’d seen on tv had been aerial shots. When I saw Suzanne Plunkett’s image of the people running ahead of the debris cloud it took the day to a whole new level for me.

For the next few days I was out in the community shooting patriotic displays, folks raising flags and having vigils. At an elementary school I was amazed at the drawings kids were creating to express their feelings about the tragedy.

As a visual person, the images from that day are seared into my memory. Will ten more years blur them a little?