Raleigh firefighters had to change their mindset after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, according to Keith Tessinear, a captain in the Raleigh Fire Department. “Every call you run now, you had to be aware that it could be a terrorist attack,” he said.

On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, Tessinear had just returned from his shift when he turned on the television and saw smoke billowing from one of the World Trade Center towers.

“My first impression was that it was a big high-rise fire,” he said. “As a newly promoted captain, I was just sitting there eating my cereal, thinking what I would do if I pulled up and that was what I had to deal with. And then the second plane hit, and right then it changed everything in my mind. I remember having a sinking feeling…somebody is trying to attack us.”

His memories were rekindled on Monday, the fifth anniversary of 9/11, when he joined other firefighters, law-enforcement officers and observers to commemorate the nearly 3,000 victims of 9/11 at a ceremony in downtown Raleigh.

One of several remembrances that took place in the city, a police honor guard lowered the flags around the N.C. Fallen Firefighters Memorial at Nash Square Park at 8:46 a.m., the time the first hijacked plane struck Tower One of the World Trade Center in New York City. The crowd observed a moment of silence and prayer to honor the memory of the fallen.

It was an emotion-laden day, with many residents and public servants reflecting on the impact that Sept. 11 still has on the nation five years after the attacks on New York City, the Pentagon, and United Flight 93, whose passengers thwarted their hijackers’ mission by crashing the plane in rural Pennsylvania.

Capt. Andy Woodall, chief of operations for the N.C. Fallen Firefighters Foundation, remembers vividly the rush of emotion he experienced that tragic day. “I was literally sick to my stomach,” he said. “It took my breath away. I stood in disbelief to think that we were being attacked on our own soil.”

Woodall, who has visited New York City more than 30 times since Sept. 11 to help the families of firefighters who died that day, also recalls where he was. “We had just come back from a fire call, and I was getting ready to start my report when my lieutenant said that a plane just hit the World Trade Center. About fifteen minutes later, I realized that we were under attack.”

The foundation spearheads efforts to honor the lives of North Carolina firefighters killed in the line of duty and to assist their families. Among other activities, the foundation was instrumental in erecting a memorial in the park dedicated to firefighters “who gallantly gave their lives protecting life and property.” The memorial includes several monuments listing the names of fallen firefighters dating to 1902.

“We started the memorial back in 1999,” said Woodall, a project director. The task was not completed until May 2006. “That’s a half-million-dollar memorial,” he said.

Woodall was one of many North Carolina firefighters who assisted in recovery efforts in New York after the attacks. “I had never seen anything like it,” he said. “The pictures they show on TV don’t even come close to being on the site. It’s unbelievable.”

Efforts were still under way to contain the fire two weeks after the attacks, Woodall said. “One of the things they needed most was boots, because they were going down into the pit and it was so hot that it was burning the rubber off the bottom of their boots.”

Woodall also described how local firefighters helped the families of firefighters in New York. “We had replica sculptures of our memorial made, and we used them to raise funds,” he said. “After September 11, we gave one of those to every family that lost a firefighter. That was quite an ordeal. There are 343 firefighters that got killed in that one incident.”

When compared to other states, the threat of terrorism in North Carolina appears less significant, said Bryant Woodall, assistant chief of operations for the RFD. “But on the other hand, if you consider the Research Triangle Park, the state government buildings here, Charlotte’s banking industry, the nuclear reactor facilities, and of course the military bases, there’s a lot of risk in North Carolina,” he said. “There’s a lot of infrastructure here that could obviously be targets if people want to create havoc for whatever reason.”

The biggest immediate changes after Sept. 11 were security issues, Woodall said. “There were reports that there were plans for people to hijack a fire apparatus to get into areas that they ordinarily couldn’t get in,” he said. “At secure areas around buildings, if you see a fire engine drive up, most people are going to just wave us on in. That was a big concern.”

“There is definitely concern [in North Carolina],” Tessinear said, referencing a probe into the 2005 terrorist bombings in London that led investigators to an Egyptian man who was a graduate student at N.C. State University in 2000. Magdy Nashar, who studied chemical engineering at NCSU, was inevitably released after officials determined that he was not connected with the attacks. While maintaining that he was innocent of involvement in the actual plot, Nashar admitted to casually knowing two of the attackers, according to the Washington Post.

Other recent events have indicated that terrorist and anti-American sympathy are present in North Carolina. In March, Mohammed Taheri-azar, a recent graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill, wounded eight students and one professor when he drove an SUV into a crowd assembled at The Pit, a popular UNC gathering spot. According to a 911 call made shortly after the incident, Taheri-azar admitted that he committed the act to “punish the government of the United States for [its] actions around the world.”

N.C. Fallen Firefighters Foundation: http://www.ncfff.org/

David Bass is an editorial intern for Carolina Journal.