Sept. 11, 2001, is one of those days where most people can remember where they were and what they were doing when they heard about the terrorist attacks that Tuesday morning.
For those in the fire service today, and especially if they were in the fire service on that particular day, the memories run deep.
Firefighter Bruce Meier, now a 23-year veteran of the Scottsbluff Fire Department, had just finished his shift that morning, and was at home watching the events unfold.
“‘Wow. Unbelievable that something like that’s happening in the United States,’” was Meier’s reaction, he said. “Once the second plane hit, you could tell there was something else going on, and it wasn’t a freak accident. I sat there with my kids and watched it.
“The firefighters there, I cannot put into words what I would think they were going through. Obviously, ‘How in the world are we going to rescue this many people this quickly?’ They surely knew that they didn’t have very much time to get everybody out."