MID-HUDSON – Twenty years have passed since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and Hudson Valley residents remember the day as if it were yesterday.
Cheryl Murphy of Newburgh remembers working as a pet groomer and standing out on Route 32 and seeing the smoke miles away from Lower Manhattan.
She said after September 11th, she started paying more attention to her surroundings. Years have passed and the wounds are still fresh. Murphy feels “the remembrance of all the lives lost” is the most important thing to be taught to upcoming generations.
Valerie Santana Granados was a fifth grader in a Bronx public school, now a Maybrook resident, and remembers her school being locked down. She remembers how her family didn’t hear from her father who worked close to the World Trade Center and it “took a while” for her father to get home.
Days after September 11, 2001, Omar Forte of the Town of Wallkill felt the “change in the tide of racism.”
