News13 viewers share 9/11 memories on 23rd anniversary of terror attack

SOCASTEE, S.C. (WBTW) — It’s been 23 years since the deadliest attack on U.S. soil, when nearly 3,000 people were killed in New York and Washington, D.C. by Al-Qaida terrorists.

News13 is sharing recollections from viewers about where they were that day. Some answers have been edited for clarity.

Ruth Butker

“My strongest memory, other than watching the horror on television was when I got home from work. My husband and I were watching television. The weather in Pittsburgh that day was comfortable. The back door was open. There was an alley out back.

I heard laughter. ‘Laughter,’ I thought. Who is laughing? I got up and looked in the alley. It was grade school children. They were playing. I went back in and sat down. My grief started to dissipate. Not gone, but not overwhelming now. I thought, ‘we have a future. The future is in that laughter.’ Children are our future. That laughter will grow. We will never forget this day, but we will go on. We, adults, will find laughter again.”

Kathy Burgess

“I was working for a radio station in Ohio and when the news department got the message, we all ran into our boss’ office and watched on TV.  All of us gals were hugging each other and crying and we all prayed. It was so frightening. First thing you think is, ‘are we being attacked in America?’ I said, ‘oh my goodness, thousands of people are going to die.’ My husband was home, and he sat the little tv out on the front porch so the guys working on the road could watch. It’s like life just stopped. My kids called me in fear as well. I do not know how anyone can forget that awful day.”

Carla Steele

“I was a teacher at a local elementary school, and my special needs students were still at activity period when one of my assistants came in and told me what happened. As I was tuning in the radio to find out myself, my kids came back in along with our principal. She asked to see the adults outside of the door. She told us what happened and told us not to tell the students. To let their parents explain it to them and that’s what we did. During our lunch/recess time I found out about the plane in Somerset County and called my dad since I am from Indiana County, which is close by. He said they weren’t sure where the plane was headed or if Pennsylvania was under attack. I went home and watched the events of the day.”

Brenda Candioto

“I was at my job in Pennsylvania listening to the Today Show on my radio with a headset. Katie Couric was talking when they got the news. I stood up inside my cubicle and everyone else in my office also stood up. We were stunned, shocked and didn’t know what to think. We were told we could go home if we felt we needed to. That night, my husband and I were laying in bed and heard a plane go over us as we lived in the flight path for Middletown Airport. That was so scary, as all flights had been cancelled and shut down. We didn’t know if it was another attack or maybe another plane flying into the airport to help out. Our church opened its doors for everyone for prayer the next day. My husband and I had a trip planned to go and visit his sister in Maine the next week, and on the way home we stopped in New York to see the devastation. I remember still smelling and seeing the smoke from the buildings. It was so sad and awful. We could see the cracks in the buildings and people going in and coming out of areas crying. It is a day I will never forget.”

Vincent Lehotsky

At work in Linden, N.J., I went to the breakroom where (a co-worker) was watching the news on TV. He said the World Trade Center was hit by a plane. While watching, the second plane strikes the other tower on live television. I go out, looking toward New York City and saw a plume of smoke coming from lower Manhattan. Our executive vice president just so happened to be with the New York/New Jersey Port Authority chairman, and was late for a meeting at the World Trade Center’s Windows of the World. The next day, I had a scheduled day off where I went to the Union County administration building located in Elizabeth, N.J. In the air raining down from the sky was all forms of debris such as papers, ash and shoot. Just filling the skies … The following year, I was a courthouse being picked for jury duty. While waiting, a television was on. Being aired was the first ceremony of the reading of names lost in the tragedy. I asked everyone to quiet down as I turned up the volume.”

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Adam Benson joined the News13 digital team in January 2024. He is a veteran South Carolina reporter with previous stops at the Greenwood Index-Journal, Post & Courier and The Sun News in Myrtle Beach. Adam is a Boston native and University of Utah graduate. Follow Adam on X, formerly Twitter, at @AdamNewshound12 . See more of his work here .

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