25 years later

Sep 11, 2026

25 years ago today, I got off the elevator on the 10th floor of the Fritz G. Lanham Fort Worth federal building shortly before 8 am CT and started walking toward the conference room for the Meteorological Services Division of NWS Southern Region Headquarters. I had flown into DFW Airport from Jackson, MS and arrived in Fort Worth the night before. I was there to attend a meeting of an NWS Southern Region team that had been formed to develop a regional plan to improve severe thunderstorm and tornado warnings at regional Weather Forecast Offices.

When I walked into the conference room, a few of my colleagues were already there starting to set up for the meeting. I saw that the television in the room was tuned to one of the network morning shows, and they were showing a live view of the World Trade Center in New York City. Smoke was coming from one of the towers, and one of my colleagues said to me, “A plane flew into one of the towers.”

We started having some conversation about how that could have happened. Somebody brought up the 1945 crash of a B-25 bomber into the Empire State Building, but noted that had occurred on a foggy day — very different than the clear, sunny skies that were in place in NYC that morning. We concluded it must have been a small plane flown by a new pilot or someone who had suffered a medical emergency — and then went on with starting our meeting.

For those of you too young to remember 9-11, this naive attitude toward what was unfolding may seem unbelievable, but as one of my favorite authors Garrett M. Graff explains in his excellent National Geographic article, the period between when the first plane hit the World Trade Center and the second plane impacted the South Tower was really the last few minutes of confused but still blissful world in which 9-11 had not happened. From Mr. Graff:

I have spent a decade studying and researching 9/11. I’ve written a book and countless articles, produced a podcast series, and given hundreds of talks on how the events of that day permanently altered the course of this country. And along the way, I have become convinced that in those 17 minutes—16 minutes and 31 seconds, to be precise—we can glimpse one America ending and a new one beginning. We can see the disappearance of the innocent optimism that defined our society in the postwar 20th century, of a nation that didn’t yet know what it felt like to be under attack or how to wake up each day facing the possibility of one.

Today some 40 percent of the country is too young to remember the events of 9/11. What they’ve learned from history books, documentaries, and museums is that the attack began at 8:46 a.m. And while this is accurate, it also isn’t quite true. It’s an example of how, as memory has coalesced into history, the 9/11 story we tell ourselves has become more and more defined by what we have learned and morphed into in the years since, slowly eroding what it meant to experience that day in real time. What we stand to lose—and what looking closely at these 17 precious minutes can remind us of—is what it meant to be an American before the term “9/11” ever entered our lexicon. Because for most Americans who can recall that morning, the attack didn’t begin at 8:46. The confusion did.

We left the television on with the sound muted in the conference room as we started our meeting. I honestly cannot remember now whether I saw out of the corner of my eye the live shot of the second plane hitting the WTC or if another colleague cried out. What I do remember is that we stopped our meeting and turned the volume up, and started watching the coverage.

We very quickly saw the video of the the second impact being replayed. It certainly looked like a larger plane, and we began discussing the likelihood that this was a deliberate act of terrorism. Still, I remember there being some discussion in our group even at this point about whether there was any possible way this was an unbelievable coincidence or perhaps an air traffic control malfunction. It wasn’t until the reports of the attack on the Pentagon began to be reported shortly before 9 am CT that it became 100% clear to all of us that this was a coordinated attack on the United States.

Even then, we tried to continue our meeting. Several of us had come to Fort Worth from out of town — as far away as Florida — and given that there was obviously nothing tangible that we could do about the unfolding situation, it seemed logical to try to continue to work.

I vividly remember our lunch break that day. We walked over to a nearby Chili’s to eat, and I stepped away to use a pay phone (yes, we used pay phones! I did not have a cell phone) to call home and talk to my wife about what was happening. I remember her telling me that my dad had called her to make sure she was aware of the breaking news because “he knew she didn’t watch television much.”

After lunch, we found out that guidance had come down to evacuate the federal building as obviously there was no way to know what else might be a target for attack. We decided to try to persist in meeting by finding a conference room at our hotel to work in for the rest of the day. That evening I went to dinner with my cousin who was a FBI Special Agent in Dallas. We had planned the dinner before any of this had happened, but it was fascinating to hear from him what he expected he would be called upon to do in response to the attacks. That was also when President Bush came on TV to give his short address to the nation, and I will never forget how the restaurant became quiet to listen to him speak.

The next day our team decided that we were not going to be productive under the circumstances and postponed the rest of the meeting. Of course, the US airspace remained closed so I could not fly home, but amazingly enough I was able to rent a car from DFW Airport and drive back to Jackson. That drive is another surreal experience, listening to the live NPR coverage that ranged from updates on the search and rescue at the attack sites to speculation about targets for new attacks to the potential for global war.

As far as the weather that fateful day, it was rather quiet nationwide with a large area of high pressure dominating the eastern half of the country. If anyone mentions weather when talking about their 9-11 experiences in NYC and DC, it is usually to comment on how beautiful it was, and what a contrast the weather was to the horror happening around them.

Hurricane Erin — which had been a major hurricane a couple of days earlier — was passing off the East Coast that day, steered out to sea by the offshore cold front that had brought the pleasant weather to the region. Many meteorologists remember this haunting visible satellite image of Erin — which was a 90 mph category 1 hurricane at the time — southeast of Long Island while plumes of smoke and debris being transported by northerly winds were visible over and offshore Manhattan.

The 9-11 attacks resulted in profound changes to the federal government that impacted agencies like NOAA, the effects of which still resonate today. Emergency management was particularly altered that day, with a massive focus shift from natural hazards to threats from terrorism, as well as the move of FEMA from a cabinet level agency to under the Department of Homeland Security.

Of course though, the most profound impact of that day were the people we tragically, and the permanently altered lives of those impacted and who lost loved ones. Hopefully, we will never forget them and will do everything in our power to help those still dealing with the consequences of that day.