Everyone who lived through Sept. 11, 2001 has their own story about that day, how it began, where they were when they heard that America was under attack, and the feelings of sadness and confusion.
Orillia resident Kevin Gangloff has a unique 9/11 story to tell as the Ohio native was in the Boston area on that bright, sunny Tuesday morning, working at Brockton High School as a youth support worker.
“It was a regular workday and it started just as any other day would. But just after 8:45 a.m., there was an announcement that a plane had hit the World Trade Center,” he recalled.
Staff and students quickly gathered around a rolling television cart where they saw the North Tower engulfed in flames. Shortly after, at 9:03, Gangloff and most of the world watched in horror as a second plane struck the South Tower.
“At that time, everybody started to be ushered into different areas of the school and people started to gather in the cafeterias,” he remembers.
“When it immediately happened, I wasn’t necessarily scared but rather a bit perplexed. It wasn’t until that second plane hit that there was talk that something is really going on and it’s all starting to unwind.”
Gangloff’s focus that morning was to comfort the students who were becoming concerned with the whereabouts of family members.
“Word starts to circulate that two hijacked planes had left Boston Logan International Airport and a lot of people commute from Boston to New York for business. I started to work with youth who have family that were travelling that day, so you start to deal with that kind of concern,” he said.
“Youth were saying 'My dad flew out this morning. Was he on one of those planes?' So, I sort of shifted into that mode of trying to comfort and care for someone the best you can in a completely unknown situation.”
Gangloff spent time that morning trying to help youth make phone calls, but phone lines were starting to go down. There were conflicting reports from television and radio about what was transpiring, and the situation was becoming more unnerving as a plane crashed into the Pentagon and the World Trade Center’s towers started to collapse.
“I can vividly remember sitting in the cafeteria with a bunch of youth and a couple of different co-workers, and I was doing the best I could to not give any false sense of hope, but saying ‘let’s wait for the news, let’s try to make contact,’ and those kinds of pieces,” he explained.
Gangloff didn’t know it at the time, but there were youth at the school that day who, in fact, lost loved ones during the attacks. He himself was concerned about some of his friends who were in the New York City area that day.
“I started to wonder if they are there, did they go there today, those sorts of things come to mind. We were dealing with a lot of information coming from the radio and the TV and it was difficult to try and process everything,” he said.
Following the attacks, Brockton High School remained closed for the rest of the week. Once the nearly 4,500 students returned to school, everybody was still in a bit of a fog.
“At that point, people still didn’t understand the full scope of what was really going on. We were still on a heightened alert that there could be something that follows,” he said.
“There were lots of assemblies and people getting together, there was less focus on actual school. Counsellors were bought in, and some youth didn’t come back to school right away for obvious reasons," he recalled.
Gangloff says there was a tone shift that hung over the entire school year. Even the football season felt different, he said..
The then 28-year-old says he felt ‘hopeless’ for the weeks and months that followed 9/11.
“There were a couple of staff members who actually wanted to go down to Ground Zero to try to help out. There were so many people missing. Closer to home there are people missing, and you just want to imagine a way that you can help out in any way,” he said.
Gangloff became worried about what the response would be from 9/11 as his father was working as a defence contractor with the U.S. military at the time.
“Having grown up in a military family, you accept it for what it is, he went away for a while here and thereafter that. But as much as I was worried and concerned, it was just another time that he had to go do what he signed up to do,” he said.
“There are still things he can’t mention or talk about even though he is long since retired, but I’ve found out that at different times he was in Kuwait, he was in Iraq, in different places doing things.”
Twenty years later, Gangloff says 9/11 still affects the lives of people he knows well today.
“That day spurred people to join the military or to engage in other ways. The amount of people that I know who have been impacted by this from that trickle-down effect is huge,” he said.
“There are so many people that I have crossed paths with or I’m really good friends with that have been affected or lost because of the global war on terrorism that was born out of all this. It’s devastating."
The now 47-year-old says he has not visited any of the 9/11 memorials. However, every year since he moved to Canada in 2002, he has marked the day of remembrance by connecting with some of the people he was with on that fateful day.
“There was uncertainty that day; we didn’t know what was happening. So, we always kind of look at each other and say, ‘I’m glad you were there with me to help me get through this,’ because in the moment we didn’t think of those sorts of things,” Gangloff said.
“Every year it hasn’t failed, it doesn’t matter where we’ve been, we’ve connected and chatted just to say hello. We might not talk the rest of the year, but we have never lost that piece that keeps us connected.”
