The City of Piedmont marked the 25th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks on Friday morning at the fire station. Mayor Betsy Smegal Andersen and Fire Chief David Brannigan delivered remarks to a gathering of local civic leaders, city staff, and community members. Attendees took turns reading the names of 25 randomly selected victims of the attack — one name for each year passed since the events of that day. Approximately 3,000 people lost their lives that day; thousands more have since died from illnesses related to toxic exposure at the crash site.
Excerpts from their remarks, and the list of names, below:
Mayor Betsy Smegal Andersen:
Twenty-five years ago today, our country changed in the space of a single morning. For those of us who remember that day, it feels like a line drawn through our own lives. There is the world we lived in before, and the world we’ve lived in since. Most of us can still tell you exactly where we were when we heard. Who we called. What the sky looked like. That kind of memory doesn’t fade. It becomes part of who we are.
But twenty-five years is a generation. Millions of Americans have been born and grown into adulthood since that day. For them, September 11th isn’t a memory – it’s history. Something you learn about in school. Something you know only through photographs and stories.
That is exactly why we gather. Remembrance doesn’t happen on its own. It is carried, with purpose, from one generation to the next.
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In the midst of unimaginable tragedy, we saw extraordinary courage. We saw firefighters climbing toward danger as others fled. We saw police officers and paramedics putting the lives of strangers ahead of their own. We saw neighbors helping neighbors, and ordinary people making extraordinary choices in the moment they were needed most. Those stories belong to September 11th. But the commitment that lies beneath them does not.
It is a thread running through generations of first responders, reaching across that dividing line in our history to connect those who served long before, those who answered the call that day, and those who stand ready to answer it now.
That is what I want us to hold onto. And to our Piedmont firefighters and police officers standing with us today, let me say it directly. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Not for what those before you did a quarter century ago, but for the fact that you keep making that same choice, every day, in ways most of us never see.
None of us can say what the years ahead – or even tomorrow – will ask of us. No one on September 10th, 2001 knew what the next morning would bring, either.
But we do know this: in every generation, there are people who step forward when it matters most, who run towards danger instead of away from it because a stranger needs help. It takes a special kind of person to have that strength. So today, we remember those we lost. We honor those who answered the call. And we give our deepest thanks to those who continue that commitment now.
Fire Chief Dave Brannigan:
I woke up on September 11, 2001 to KQED radio reporting a plane had hit the World Trade Center. My wife and I sat in bed with our 3 month old daughter watching the morning unfold, unable to comprehend what we were watching. I was an EMT trying to get into the fire service and as we watched all I could think was “what is the world we’ve just brought this beautiful young child into?”
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It’s so important for those of us who witnessed, or watched, or survived to dig into our experience and ensure we pass on a world that we have made better for the pain we bore. It’s important because history fades fast, maybe not in lore or stories, but in feeling. I don’t feel Pearl Harbor like my grandparents did, but I learned the grit that they passed on. I don’t feel Dr. King’s assassination like my parents did, but I learned their values of justice and allyship.
I feel what happened on 9/11. So now I must honor the memory of those who were lost by living a life that demonstrates duty and commitment to the generation that comes next. For me, 9/11 ignited a very deep obligation. An obligation to the firefighters, police officers, the flight attendants and pilots, the rescue workers, the civilians, the ferry captains, the national guard. I have an obligation to all who stood up and responded, to all those who survived, and to all those who perished. I have an obligation to put aside my fear, to harness my skills, and be ready to do what it takes when the bell tolls.
