Just about everyone can remember where they were when the events of Sept. 11, 2001, unfolded on live television before our eyes. The Gazette caught up with a few prominent St. Albertans, both past and present, to let them share their stories of where they were when the two airplanes hit the twin towers of the World Trade Centre in New York City …
In 2001, Nolan Crouse wasn’t yet a member of St. Albert city council; he owned a lumber packaging business on the west end of Edmonton. There, he had about 30 employees, and told them the news while they were on break after hearing about the attacks on the radio.
“I went down to the lunchroom and shared what I had learned with my staff … and I remember very vividly one of my employees — he was a highly intelligent, very well read employee — he looked at me and said, ‘This will change the world.’
“He hadn’t heard about it. He didn’t know about it. He hadn’t seen it on television; he was out in the plant working. He just looked at me and said, ‘This will change the world.’ I remember that; I remember his comment. It was that ‘a-ha’ moment that he gave to myself and the rest of our staff.”
In September 2001, Brent Rathgeber was still adjusting to life in the Alberta legislature, having just been elected the MLA for Edmonton-Calder the previous March. He was at home getting ready for the day when the first airplane hit the first tower.
“I was listening to the radio — I think it was K-Rock, but I’m not entirely sure. They mentioned there had been an incident in New York, that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. So I turned on the TV immediately, because sometimes K-Rock has pranks and stuff. But this seemed serious enough — I don’t normally watch TV in the morning.”
Later in the day, after fielding a phone call from his sister in Saskatoon, Rathgeber flipped off the TV and went to the legislature buildings. MLAs were not sitting at the time, but they gathered there and went through the situation together.
“The whole day and most of the next day, we sat around — MLAs and staff — watching TV as they replayed it over and over again. In the days that followed, they started to go through the rubble looking for signs of life, and they found a few thankfully. We were glued to the TV for all of that day and parts of the next few days.”
“It was unbelievably surreal and frightening,” he added
When the attacks occurred, Paul Chalifoux was just nearing the end of his first term as the mayor of St. Albert, and gearing up for what would be a hard-fought re-election campaign. He had just arrived at St. Albert Place and was on his way up to his third-floor office when former cultural services director Gail Barrington-Moss stopped him and told him what was going on.
“We put the TV on, and next thing we know, we had about half a dozen of the staff there looking at the live coverage of what was going on. We did see the second building hit, and the first one collapse — it wasn’t just a brief turning on and then get on with something else. We were kind of transfixed by this whole thing, what was happening.
“Personally, it’s a moment in my life, like JFK’s assassination — where were you, what were you doing. You remember that; it’s embedded in your memory as an extraordinary event.”
