Zachary Residents Recount Firsthand Experiences in NYC on 9/11/2001
Sep 09, 2024 12:57PM ● By Jen Gennaro
This is an excerpt of the Porch & Parish podcast "Voices from Ground Zero," released 9/9/2024. Tap here to listen to the episode.
The following story contains graphic descriptions of a traumatic event. Reader and listener discretion is advised.
It's been 24 years this week since the world changed forever. Nearly every American remembers exactly where they were on the morning of September 11, 2001—a day that forever changed the course of history.
This is a story of bravery, resilience, and humanity in the face of overwhelming adversity. It’s a story that deserves to be heard and remembered.
Here are some excerpts from the podcast interview:
Louie DeVirgilio:
Both towers were hit and we were under the towers, lined up in formation, being counted and being distributed to sergeants. My sergeant comes over to me with the captain and says hey, the captain needs two people to go to the roof of this building because there's a piece of the plane on it and it's going to be a crime scene. So my friend Mike and I went to the staircase, started walking up. It was about 20 flights of stairs, in a building across from the World Trade Center... So once we got out we could see a part of one of the planes on the far side of the building. But it also gave us a good view of the World Trade Center. So we were looking through at one of the towers and when the smoke would would blow, you could actually see daylight through the tower. Finally, after a while, I said, Mike, let's go just check this piece of the plane and get off this rooftop. So when we turned to the right, the ledge of the building was there and I just happened to look down to the street which was West Broadway, and people were running. So I turned to Mike, I go why are people running? And then we both looked up and the South Tower looked like it leaned towards us. At that time we didn't know that it was going to fall more or less straight down. We thought it was going to fall over onto us. And you know people have asked me were you scared at that moment? And I said no, because I couldn't jump off the roof. We were never going to make it down the 20 flights of stairs in time. I just thought I was dead and there was nothing I could do about it.
So me and Mike just hit the floor. We had our riot helmets on, so we just put our hands behind our riot helmets and then, the best way I can describe to you, it was like being right next to a freight train as it was going by, because that's how it sounded. Then, about another 30 seconds to a minute, it was dead silence.
Robbi Flynn:
Well, I was in the air. I was flying that day, I had been in Seattle the night before and was supposed to fly from Seattle back to Dallas. So the flight left Seattle at 7 o'clock in the morning, and we were in the air about 40 minutes and passengers actually started saying something's wrong. They were getting messages from friends on the ground. I think even at takeoff they were hearing rumblings... I went up into the cockpit. The first class flight tenant called me up there and the captain told us that the towers had been hit and that we were turning around, going back to Seattle, and he would make an announcement. So he did and it was a very calm, controlled. He was very good at what he did and he kept everybody real calm.
Betty Ong was based in New York and she called flight service. Now she would have been at the back of the airplane back in the galley area and she was working in the back. But she saw what was happening at the front and I mean it's pretty graphic. I can tell you what she saw. And it was right after takeoff that they got up and they slit his throat with the box cutter and broke into the cockpit. She saw it happening and she called flight service, which was our bosses. She was still low enough that she could get transmission and she called them and she told them what seats the two guys were. In that way, they were able to immediately find out who did it.
The following story contains graphic descriptions of a traumatic event. Reader and listener discretion is advised.
It's been 24 years this week since the world changed forever. Nearly every American remembers exactly where they were on the morning of September 11, 2001—a day that forever changed the course of history.
But for some, that day was more than just a turning point... It was a day of action, courage, and unimaginable sacrifice. It’s a day that first responders faced head-on, running toward danger when most would flee. They are the heroes who saved lives, comforted the wounded, and bore witness to one of the darkest moments in our nation's history.
Today, we’re honored to have one of those heroes with us—a first responder who was on the front lines during the attacks on the World Trade Center. In this episode, we’ll hear New York native and Zachary resident Louie DeVirgilio’s firsthand account of what it was like to be there on that day, and how the events of 9/11 have shaped his life and career ever since.
He’s joined in the booth by his wife, District 3 Councilwoman Ambre DeVirgilio, who was a 22-year old college student in Manhattan and witnessed the attacks on the World Trade Center. The couple had not yet met.
And, later, we’ll hear from another Zachary resident, Robbi Flynn, who was a flight attendant for American Airlines on September 11, 2001.
Here are some excerpts from the podcast interview:
Ambre DeVirgilio:
So I was 22, a college student fairly new to New York. I had still the naïveté of a college student at 22 years old and I was running late that morning for class, which was not unusual. There was no GPS or smartphones, so the World Trade Center towers were really my compass... I was just so accustomed to looking at them every day. I walked out onto 6th Avenue and I saw the first tower on fire and it was about 9 o'clock, maybe a little after, and there were people out looking at it and staring at it and I just thought, "They'll put it out."
And the sky was just such a beautiful, bright blue that day... almost a royal blue color and there were no clouds in the sky at all. And I stood on the corner waiting for the traffic signal to cross and the second plane flew over. It was the United Airlines flight and it was so low and...I started putting it together and I knew, I knew what was happening.
I actually continued on to school after I saw the United Airlines Flight 175 hit. Everything was kind of in slow motion. I walked into class and my professor was there and most of my classmates and I said, turn on the TV, we're under attack. A lot of us started trying to call our family members and we had flip phones, so there was no texting or anything like that, and you would just call and call and call and you couldn't get through. And then, of course, about an hour and an hour and a half later, they both collapsed and I watched that from the street as well.And the sky was just such a beautiful, bright blue that day... almost a royal blue color and there were no clouds in the sky at all. And I stood on the corner waiting for the traffic signal to cross and the second plane flew over. It was the United Airlines flight and it was so low and...I started putting it together and I knew, I knew what was happening.
Louie DeVirgilio:
Both towers were hit and we were under the towers, lined up in formation, being counted and being distributed to sergeants. My sergeant comes over to me with the captain and says hey, the captain needs two people to go to the roof of this building because there's a piece of the plane on it and it's going to be a crime scene. So my friend Mike and I went to the staircase, started walking up. It was about 20 flights of stairs, in a building across from the World Trade Center... So once we got out we could see a part of one of the planes on the far side of the building. But it also gave us a good view of the World Trade Center. So we were looking through at one of the towers and when the smoke would would blow, you could actually see daylight through the tower. Finally, after a while, I said, Mike, let's go just check this piece of the plane and get off this rooftop. So when we turned to the right, the ledge of the building was there and I just happened to look down to the street which was West Broadway, and people were running. So I turned to Mike, I go why are people running? And then we both looked up and the South Tower looked like it leaned towards us. At that time we didn't know that it was going to fall more or less straight down. We thought it was going to fall over onto us. And you know people have asked me were you scared at that moment? And I said no, because I couldn't jump off the roof. We were never going to make it down the 20 flights of stairs in time. I just thought I was dead and there was nothing I could do about it.
So me and Mike just hit the floor. We had our riot helmets on, so we just put our hands behind our riot helmets and then, the best way I can describe to you, it was like being right next to a freight train as it was going by, because that's how it sounded. Then, about another 30 seconds to a minute, it was dead silence.
Robbi Flynn:
Well, I was in the air. I was flying that day, I had been in Seattle the night before and was supposed to fly from Seattle back to Dallas. So the flight left Seattle at 7 o'clock in the morning, and we were in the air about 40 minutes and passengers actually started saying something's wrong. They were getting messages from friends on the ground. I think even at takeoff they were hearing rumblings... I went up into the cockpit. The first class flight tenant called me up there and the captain told us that the towers had been hit and that we were turning around, going back to Seattle, and he would make an announcement. So he did and it was a very calm, controlled. He was very good at what he did and he kept everybody real calm.
Betty Ong was based in New York and she called flight service. Now she would have been at the back of the airplane back in the galley area and she was working in the back. But she saw what was happening at the front and I mean it's pretty graphic. I can tell you what she saw. And it was right after takeoff that they got up and they slit his throat with the box cutter and broke into the cockpit. She saw it happening and she called flight service, which was our bosses. She was still low enough that she could get transmission and she called them and she told them what seats the two guys were. In that way, they were able to immediately find out who did it.
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