Written by Troy Clark
September 11, 2001, is a day I will never forget.
I was working at Denver International Airport that morning. Our construction team was working on the runways when reports started coming over the radio about what was happening in New York.
Like most people, I was trying to understand what we were hearing as the situation developed. Once it became clear that commercial aircraft were involved, I started thinking about where we were working and the fact that an airport might not be the safest place for our team at that moment.
I contacted the site supervisor and suggested that he evacuate the team. I left the site shortly afterward. Most of our team stayed and were later detained until authorities cleared them to leave.
That memory has stayed with me for 25 years.
People who remember that morning often remember exactly where they were and what they were doing when they first heard. For some, the memory is tied to a television screen or a phone call. Mine is tied to a construction site at DIA and the radio reports coming in while we were working.
For thousands of families, September 11 carries something far more personal. Someone they loved did not come home.
Remembering Those We Lost
The attacks on September 11 killed 2,977 people at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and aboard Flight 93 near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
That number is repeated every year, but it represents individual lives. People left home that morning expecting an ordinary Tuesday. Some were going to work, some were traveling, and many of the first responders who died entered the danger after the attacks had already begun.
Firefighters climbed into the towers as people were trying to get out. Police officers, Port Authority personnel, emergency medical workers, airline crews, passengers, and civilians all became part of what happened that morning in different ways.
September 11 should always begin with remembering the people who died and the families who have lived with that loss ever since.
But when the towers came down, another part of the story began.
Construction Workers Became Part of the Recovery
Ground Zero became one of the most difficult work sites imaginable.
Collapsed structural steel and concrete covered the site. Utilities and underground infrastructure were damaged. Fires continued to burn while heavy dust and smoke remained in the air.
First responders were still searching as construction professionals began dealing with the physical conditions created by the collapse.
The construction industry suddenly had skills that were badly needed.
Much of the work required heavy equipment, cutting and moving structural steel, handling debris, stabilizing conditions, and transporting material away from the site. Ironworkers, operating engineers, laborers, truck drivers, contractors, and other trades worked alongside first responders and public agencies as the recovery continued.
Every piece of debris had to be handled with an awareness of what might be found within it.
That changed the nature of the work.
For people accustomed to building, repairing, or demolishing structures, Ground Zero was something entirely different. The work was physical, dangerous, and deeply personal because thousands of people had died at the site.
The recovery continued around the clock for nearly nine months.
By the time the formal effort ended in May 2002, approximately 1.8 million tons of material had been removed from the World Trade Center site.
The Last Column
Near the end of the recovery, a 36-foot section of steel from the South Tower had become known as the Last Column.
During the months of work at Ground Zero, people covered it with names, photographs, messages, union markings, and memorials.
Construction workers cut the column down on May 28, 2002. Two days later, it was ceremonially removed from the site, marking the formal end of the recovery operation.
That moment has always stood out to me because construction has a long tradition involving the final piece of structural steel. Usually, it is a sign that something new is taking shape.
At Ground Zero, the removal of that steel meant months of recovery work were finally coming to an end. What followed would require a different kind of construction effort.
Some Workers Never Really Left 9/11 Behind
The conditions at Ground Zero followed many people long after the site was cleared.
Workers and responders were exposed to dust, smoke, and contaminants during the attacks and the months of recovery. Over time, many developed serious health conditions associated with those exposures.
Construction workers were among them.
The World Trade Center Health Program continues to provide medical monitoring and treatment for eligible responders and survivors with certified 9/11-related health conditions.
For some people, the real cost of working at Ground Zero did not become apparent until years later.
They finished their work and returned home, but the effects of the exposure remained.
The 9/11 Memorial Glade now recognizes rescue and recovery workers, survivors, and members of the Lower Manhattan community who became sick or died from conditions associated with 9/11.
Their experience is part of the history of that day and everything that followed.
Then Construction Returned for a Different Reason
Eventually, the work at the World Trade Center site shifted from recovery to rebuilding.
The National September 11 Memorial was built within the footprints of the Twin Towers. New construction began reshaping the surrounding site, and One World Trade Center started rising above Lower Manhattan.
Many people still know it by the name used early in its development, the Freedom Tower.
The building reaches 1,776 feet, a deliberate reference to the year the Declaration of Independence was signed. Construction crews raised the final section of its spire in 2013, and the building opened the following year.
There is something about that part of the story that I appreciate as someone who has spent most of his life around construction.
The people building One World Trade Center were working on ground that already carried enormous meaning. Beside them were the footprints of the Twin Towers. Beneath and around the new construction was a site that thousands of recovery workers had spent months clearing.
The work itself still required what construction always requires. Crews had schedules, drawings, equipment, inspections, steel, concrete, and deadlines.
But this project would always carry more than the normal expectations of a high-rise.
Each phase of construction put something back into a skyline that had been changed forever on September 11.
That is one reason the construction workers who rebuilt the site deserve to be part of the remembrance.
Twenty-Five Years Later
I still remember the radio at DIA and trying to make sense of what was happening hundreds of miles away.
My experience that morning was small compared with what happened in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania. I was able to leave the airport and eventually go home. Thousands of other people never had that opportunity.
That is what matters most today.
We remember the people who were killed and the families who have now lived 25 years without them. We remember the first responders and civilians who stepped forward during the attacks, along with everyone who spent the months that followed working through the destruction.
Construction workers became part of that effort because their skills were needed at one of the worst possible moments.
Years later, other workers returned to the same ground with a different purpose.
Today, One World Trade Center rises 1,776 feet above Lower Manhattan, while the Memorial preserves the footprints of the towers that stood there before September 11, 2001.
The people who helped recover the site and those who helped rebuild it are part of that history.
Twenty-five years later, they deserve to be remembered alongside everyone who answered the call when our country needed them.
Never forget.
