Raleigh,
Sep 11 -
Congressman David Price (NC-04) delivered the following remarks today to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Price was joined by local firefighters and community leaders at a memorial ceremony at the Exploris Museum in Raleigh.
Thank you for taking the time to be here and for helping us remember the lives that were lost and how our own lives changed on this day five years ago.
The first plane came out of a cloudless blue sky to strike one of the twin towers at about this hour (8:45 a.m.). TV stations interrupted their normal programming and then, in stunned silence, America watched the second tower being hit a little after 9:00 a.m.
I’m sure that each of us can remember where we were when we first heard the news. I was not near a TV at the time but was with other members in the Longworth House Office Building, preparing for a Budget Committee hearing, when we first heard news that the Pentagon had been hit around 9:45 a.m.
There was disbelief and then alarm as word came that the Capitol itself might be a target. I learned that we were to evacuate, and I joined my staff as they left our office building next door. There are many stories from my colleagues and staff of uncertainty, clogged highways, jammed phone lines, and family members trying to determine our safety. Above all, there was a kind of amazement bordering on disbelief. I remember one colleague saying as we stood outside, “This country will never be the same.”
I live near the Capitol and was able to wait out the day safely in my apartment. After repeated efforts, I was able to assure my wife of my safety. The next day, in a spirit of bipartisan determination, Congress came back into session.
We know now that the Capitol was a target. United Airlines Flight 93 crashed in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, at 10:10 that morning, brought down by the heroic acts of Americans who understood what was happening elsewhere and gave their own lives to save many others. Congress has directed that a memorial to the passengers and crew of Flight 93 be selected in the next few weeks.
We saw candles lit and U. S. flags flown in countries around the world to offer their sympathy. We were comforted by that solidarity, and it was reflected in congressional enactments of emergency assistance to New York and Washington and of authorizations to pursue Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
Our lives in Washington – and most everywhere – are different now. There are much more obvious provisions for security and some that are not so obvious. There are health concerns for all those who survived the rubble and for those who helped clean it up in NYC. There is need for the government to take new measures to ensure security and at the same time to respect the privacy rights of individual citizens. There is the continuing challenge to stop those who would do us harm and to do so in a way that honors the values our country stands for.
I know that others in the program are to say thank you to the first responders here, but I want to acknowledge your heroism, too. No one could have known the totality of what was happening on 9/11 at the time, and that’s true as you move through all kinds of emergencies. Thank you for your willingness to go into dangerous situations every day. Though there have been serious frustrations as the Department of Homeland Security has evolved, we must continue to find ways to provide equipment, training, and enhanced capacities that give you as much protection as possible as you protect our communities against whatever disaster, manmade or natural, may befall us. Today we honor and thank you, as we memorialize the fallen.
