I was 50 years old and employed by the City of Bethlehem as the deputy director of community development. My overall supervisory responsibilities included the city’s building inspections, housing inspections, housing rehabilitation, recycling, health, EMS and grants management.

On that morning health bureau employee Harvey Joseph came down from his second floor office to inform us that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center in New York City. At that point and as other employees joined us, we thought it might be an accident as we watched newscasts on the TV in department director Tony Hanna’s office.

Moments later, we watched as a second plane approached and exploded as it flew into the South Tower. We were stunned, but then realized that what we were watching was probably intentional.

As we watched the destruction and responses by New York City public safety services, chief building inspector Craig Hynes, who was standing next to me, expressed his concern regarding the Twin Towers structural integrity to withstand the impacts because of the impact force, the fire and the heat.

Not 10 minutes later, the second tower hit, the South Tower began to implode on itself sending smoke and debris all over the World Trade Center area. I just looked at Craig. Within 45 minutes the North Tower began to crumble down.

What I will never forget was when some people working in those buildings began to jump out of the burning towers to their deaths.

As the numbness set in, announcements of a third plane crashing into the Pentagon in Washington D.C. came across the air waves, and later news of a fourth plane, Flight 93, crashing in western Pennsylvania.

Later that morning, I received a call from Bethlehem EMS director Gordon Smith. He informed me that Bethlehem’s EMS might have to move an ambulance to Western New Jersey as EMS services throughout New Jersey moved toward the New York City area to support emergency responses. Bethlehem would be backfilling services in New Jersey communities if their services were needed farther east.

I went to Mayor Don Cunningham’s office to inform him of this possibility.

Throughout the morning, I was also making phone calls to friends who worked in Manhattan to confirm that they were not harmed in any way. After many tries, I finally was able to get through to them and confirm their safety.

However, in the days following, I would learn that someone I had tailgated with at concerts held at the Garden State Performing Arts Center had perished in the attack. Lee Adler was 48 years old and he worked at Cantor Fitzgerald in the upper floors of the North Tower. He left behind his wife and daughter.

Postscript: Several weeks later I took a bus into New York City’s Port Authority and hiked down to the World Trade Center area with a camera.

The solemnity in the air was thick and spectators were visiting the site. I spoke with a firefighter and police officer who had responded that fateful morning. That gave me tips for photographic vantage points. Each had lost friends and coworkersI visited nearby St. Paul’s Chapel with its many memorials to the 9/11 victims and then found a couple of the recommended vantage points to take photos. Demolition and repair work was already underway as the city and nation had begun to recover.