LAS VEGAS — Only some have witnessed the rubble that happened on September 11, 2001 first hand.
Here in the valley Battalion Chief with Clark County Fire Department, Leo Durkin was on a mission with local firefighters in recovery efforts.
He explains when his team first got to Ground Zero Close and the pile he was amazed, "there was nothing recognizable from an office, there we’re no computers no desks no carpeting there are no furnishings that could be distinguished in the pile buildings,” saying, “ the energy of those huge buildings coming down hard crumpled up everything.”
If you’re old enough to remember 9/11, you will never forget what you were doing that day when you heard the news.
Durkin was three thousand miles away working on his home when a neighbor told him of the news.
Durkin says he instantly knew many, many people had died that day watching the news including fellow firefighters.
There’s no way to describe the sights, the sounds, and the smells that lingered months after the towers collapsed.
“All that was left with the old concrete ground powder and everybody remember seeing those images of that white powder that white cloud as they ran from the towers that powder and fell and I can’t arrest everywhere blocks and blocks away from Ground Zero.”
Twenty-one years later—the memories are still fresh, but as Leo and I reminisce about a chapter of our lives that changed us and Americans around the country---forever---we’re reminded that in the wake of tragedy there was a unity that rose from the ashes.
