Bells tolled, flags waved and moments of silence were held across the Philadelphia region Thursday as communities remembered the lives lost in the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
As memorial ceremonies were held at Ground Zero in New York, communities in Pennsylvania and New Jersey held their own.
At the 9/11 Memorial Garden of Reflection in Yardley, Pennsylvania, a bell tolled at six key times, remembering the tragic moments from the attacks. The first tolled at 8:46 a.m., which was when American Airlines Flight 11 struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center.
Judi Reiss’ son Josh was one of the 18 people with Bucks County ties lost that day. Josh, 23, was in his first year on the job for the Canter Fitzgerald financial firm, located inside the North Tower.
The tower fell at 10:28 a.m., 24 years ago.
“He was only 23. He’s been gone longer than I had him,” Judi Reiss said. “People say you get over it. There’s not a day or a holiday or a change in seasons where I don’t think about him.”
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Reiss said she hopes people left the ceremony remembering not just the 2,977 lives lost.
“I want them to remember how we felt, not on Sept. 11, but on Sept. 12: that we are one nation, we are made up of people with different ideas, different values, different religions. But we are one country,” Reiss said.
Victor Saracini, the captain of United Airlines Flight 175 — the plane that struck the South Tower of the World Trade Center — was also a Bucks County resident.
Over in Moorestown, New Jersey, a prayer service and breakfast at the 200 Club of Burlington County honored the victims as well as the first responders who helped in the days and weeks after the attacks.
“Primarily, it was emergency service workers who were on the pile, but immediately after, you had construction workers, and you had everyday citizens on the pile, trying to help remove those who died,” said Pete Clifford, chairman of the 9/11 prayer service.
“It’s who we are as Americans not to stand by, but to stand together,” Clifford added.
The prayer breakfast started right after the attacks 24 years ago and has been an annual event ever since.
Elsewhere in our region, displays of 2,977 flags — one for each victim — were arranged in spots like Pennsauken, New Jersey and at the Katz JCC in Cherry Hill.
And in Gloucester Township, Genelle Guzman-McMillan, the last survivor pulled from the rubble of the World Trade Center, was set to speak at Camden County College’s 9/11 commemoration.
More observances were held in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where United Airlines Flight 93 crashed into a field after its passengers tried to retake the plane from the hijackers. It’s believed the hijackers intended to crash that plane in Washington, D.C.
contributed to this report.