25 years later, Savannah residents reflect on where they were on 9/11

SAVANNAH, Ga. (WTOC) - Many Americans alive today weren’t yet born when the Twin Towers fell. But for three Savannah residents, September 11, 2001, is a day they still carry with them, 25 years later.

Savannah resident Jane Grismer says a quote from the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in New York has stuck with her ever since she first read it.

“They asked people to describe what color blue the sky was that day,” Grismer said. “And it’s such a beautiful quote when it has to do with 9/11.”

It’s a detail she returns to because that morning started out like any other — clear skies, warm weather, nothing to suggest what was coming.

‘I knew at that second we were at war’

Savannah Mayor Van Johnson was born and raised in Brooklyn. On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, he was working for Chatham County Emergency Services — watching his hometown come under attack from about 800 miles away.

“As we continued to watch, the buildings were coming down ... it became very difficult for me to reach my parents,” Johnson said. “I went from prayer to panic ... just trying to determine ... was America under attack?”

Johnson recalled watching the chaos unfold from a distance, describing scenes he saw on live television.

“You watched thousands of New Yorkers covered in dust, walking across the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges,” he said.

Both Johnson and Grismer were in Savannah when the tragedy struck New York City.

Grismer grew up on Long Island and was working at Memorial Hospital when she watched the second plane hit the World Trade Center.

“I was in a room with New Yorkers, watching this happen, and then I saw the second plane hit, and it looked like a movie,” Grismer said. “I knew at that second we were at war.”

Grismer’s connection to the World Trade Center went beyond geography. Her father had recently retired as the general manager of World Trade Center building operations, and both of her brothers were New York City firefighters.

A near miss and a lasting mark on the city

Scott West, another Savannah resident who was living in New York at the time, had just moved to Lower Manhattan. Weeks before the attacks, he’d interviewed for a job inside the World Trade Center — a job that could have put him in the towers that morning.

“About a month before 9/11, I interviewed for a job ... I didn’t get it,” West said. “I was so upset and disappointed. That job was on the 95th floor of Tower 1. I just realized, I wasn’t meant to be there.”

West said he still doesn’t know what happened to some people he knew from that time.

“There’s still people that I don’t know if they made it out or not,” West said. “It changed the city completely. It really did.”

‘Horrific’

For Grismer, the losses were personal and overwhelming. She said her brother’s firehouse alone lost nine men that day.

“Horrific. I lost so many people that day. So many people that we knew,” Grismer said. “Last count was 106 [people].”

A message for the next generation

Twenty-five years later, Johnson says that day still shapes what he hopes younger generations. many of whom have no memory of the attacks, come to understand.

“The freedom that we enjoy, someone paid for with their lives or with their sacrifice,” Johnson said.

For those who lived through it, September 11th began like any other day, which is part of why it’s stayed with them for so long.

“And I feel like it was the last perfect day we had,” Grismer said, “because, you know, we were all just living our life and had no idea something like that could happen.”