Local woman who survived 9/11 attacks returns to Ground Zero

VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – A Vancouver woman who was underneath the Twin Towers in New York when the first plane hit a decade ago has returned to New York to commemorate the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

“Little tiny pieces of glass fell onto our taxi. It didn’t even look like glass; you didn’t know it was glass… it was just bits,” describes Caitlin Callahan, who says the experience sounded like thunder and felt like a movie.

“There was a whole bunch of shoe stores on Broadway giving shoes to people walking up from the site,” she recalls.

She and her husband were out of their home for two months. “For the next six months, we had to show our passports to get into our apartment.”

After surviving that day, Callahan be spending time near Ground Zero on Sunday with others. She tells us she’ll be at a church that’s burned into her memory. “They had set up at TV in the church on the altar. It was just us there were a couple of dirty-looking businessmen all covered in stuff. Everyone just sat there, watching this TV.”

“It’s been a long time, but it’s still very fresh,” says Callahan. “It’s really hard to talk about it and tell that story. I told it the other night at dinner and my sister said it’s the first time I’ve really said it all out loud.”

“It brought me really close to this city, quickly,” she explains. “I was a newcomer; it made me proud that I lived here when I saw how everyone acted. It’s a huge part of history.”

“My son was born in Manhattan two years later, so he’s a New Yorker.”

Tune in to News1130 on Sunday at 8 a.m. when Callahan will join us live from New York.

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