A quarter century later, Richmonders remember 9/11

At a Thursday ceremony held by Dominion Energy, officials reflected on how the world has changed since the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. (Photos by Sarah Vogelsong/The Richmonder)

Twenty-five years ago Friday, the world as many Americans knew it changed.

The terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers and Pentagon that occurred on Sept. 11, 2001, ushered in two wars, new government powers and a sense that no longer was the United States an untouchable beacon of safety.

Almost 3,000 people died in the events of that day. Thousands more have since been lost to health-related illnesses incurred as a result of the attacks.

“You have not been forgotten, and I have not forgotten,” pledged Virginia Secretary of Public Safety and Homeland Security Stanley Meador in a memorial event held at Dominion Energy’s Richmond headquarters Thursday.

A quarter century after 9/11, many Richmonders are pausing late this week to reflect on the single deadliest foreign attack to ever occur on American soil.

Virginia Secretary of Public Safety and Homeland Security Stanley Meador spent eight days digging through rubble at the Pentagon after the attacks.

Dominion, which employs over 5,000 people in the region, including many veterans, held its commemoration Sept. 10. The city of Richmond will hold its own ceremony Friday morning at City Hall. Both events were scheduled to honor the timeline of the attacks and include ceremonial stair climbs, and the City Hall observance will be followed by a blood drive.

“Twenty‑five years later, the memories of 9/11 remain close to our hearts,” said Mayor Danny Avula. “We remember the lives cut short, the families changed forever, and the first responders and service members who showed a level of courage that continues to move us today.”

No Richmonders were recorded in the lists of the dead from Sept. 11, although news reports in the following weeks would record ties to the region and near-misses.

Sgt. Scott Kennedy of the Metro Richmond Police Emerald Society Pipers plays Amazing Grace on the bagpipes.

Four alumni of the University of Richmond were killed. Others from the Richmond region lost children, relatives and friends. Four employees of the Virginia State Corporation Commission, which is headquartered in Richmond, likely narrowly escaped death at the World Trade Center when a planned 8:30 a.m. meeting there was rescheduled to 9 a.m.

Like elsewhere in the U.S., the Richmond area grieved and then sought to help. First responders announced they were available to mobilize if needed. Donations were collected. A national day of mourning was observed.

During Thursday’s Dominion memorial, Meador and other speakers acknowledged the changes swept in by the tragedy.

“There is DNA from the lessons learned after 9/11 by the U.S. intelligence community and all the agents that make up the U.S. intelligence community,” said Adam Lee, a former Federal Bureau of Investigations agent who is now Dominion’s chief security officer. “There's DNA in the things that you do and see every day. There's DNA in our military response. There's DNA in our first responders, our law enforcement that was informed by those events.”

For Meador, some of the impacts proved profoundly personal.

On Sept. 11, the secretary, then a special agent with Virginia ABC in Northern Virginia, was among those who responded to the Pentagon. He spent eight days at the site, sifting through rubble to find evidence of what had occurred.

“‘We're all going to get sick from this,’” he remembered telling colleagues.

Twelve years later, as his wife was pregnant with twins, he was diagnosed with stage 3 cancer that would eventually progress to stage 4.

“It was in 2016 that I was sitting in my chair at home and wondering, ‘How did this happen to me?’” he said. “I began to research 9/11 and the World Trade Centers and Shanksville and the Pentagon, and I came upon the World Trade Center Health Organization and at that time found that 58 cancers had been identified for first responders on 9/11.”

Earlier this week, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani released over 170,000 pages of documents related to hazardous air quality produced by the attacks.

“A quarter century has passed,” said Commander Kaelan Clay, the chaplain for the Bataan Amphibious Readiness Group, in a prayer Thursday. “Yet time does not diminish the loss incurred and the sacrifice spent.”

Contact Reporter Sarah Vogelsong at svogelsong@richmonder.org. Dominion Energy is a sponsor of The Richmonder but was not allowed to review or influence this story.