10 years later
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“It sickens me how they cheered when the towers were hit” ... Sarah Booms Helton. “And then we began to realize that Charlotte was just a few miles away with all those banking towers” ... David Isenhour
Jimmy Hensley, coordinator of Brown Emergency Training Center at Cleveland Community College, displays a piece of history at Cleveland Community College–steel from one of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center.
Local college has ‘piece of history’ ‘A piece of history’ is how fireman Jimmy Hensley describes steel from one of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, to his class of emergency training students at Brown Emergency Training Center at Cleveland Community College where he is fire training coordinator. Hensley, a part time fireman at Kings Mountain Fire Department, contacted the NC Port Authority several years ago in an effort to acquire the steel. It was recently awarded to Brown Emergency Training Center as a permanent piece to commemorate the tragedy of 9/11. Hensley displayed the steel piece in his classroom as a memorial to the firefighters who died in the early morning terrorist attack Sept. 11, 2001 in the worst attack ever on U.S. soil. “Every time we look at that steel we are reminded of the horror of that day and the thousands of lives lost,” Hensley said.
"It’s my hopes that everyone will purposely make some time in their busy schedules to remember how they felt that day and to pray to God that He leads our country, protects our emergency services workers, our military, and comforts all Americans!"...Jason Wofford “I think we felt somewhat indestructible before. We’re smarter than that now.”...Julia Benfield “I would say that today, we’re more aware. I don’t know how much safer.”...Chris Black
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We saw people helping people...My wakeup call. For Jon Abernathy it was indeed a life-changing event... “All we could do was stand there with others and watch the towers burn and then they disappeared in a cloud of white smoke.” The images trouble him still, he added. Abernathy said the whole spectacle changed his life. “When I saw those buildings fall, I expected there to be riots and everything. That’s not what we saw that day,” he said. “We saw people helping other people; going out of their way to help other people. That changed my whole outlook. It was my ‘wake-up’ call! I saw I needed to go to work for God’s kingdom! I couldn’t do the things I do today, like singing in my church, giving my testimony, if not for what I saw on September 11.”
More from a Cherryville man who was there when it happened...Page 2