As the 14th anniversary of September 11th approaches, the topic of the terrorist attacks starts to arise in classrooms. Early in the morning, a small plane wi

th 92 people aboard hit the north tower of the World Trade Center. Half an hour later, a second plane with 65 aboard struck the south tower. Soon, a third plane had hit the Pentagon in Washington D.C. Around the same time, south tower collapsed. A fourth hijacked plane crash lands as Americans regain control from the hijackers. At that same time, a portion of the pentagon collapsed. Not much later, the north tower collapses, plummeting straight down, only half an hour after fall of the south tower. The five other World Trade Center buildings were also destroyed, including building seven, due to the flames resulting from the twin towers’ destruction. Overall, the attacks in D.C, and New York City resulted in over 3,000 deaths, including over 400 firefighters and police officers.

Maurizio Antonnicola is the fashion marketing teacher and has been teaching at HHS for the past 30 years. He speaks about his memories and feelings of the day.

“Everybody in the school had stopped doing what they were doing and everybody was watching TV, so the whole school was in a state of shock and all the kids were watching CNN and watching everything that was developing and you could almost watch the whole thing on TV, that was the craziest thing. We didn’t see the planes hit, but we pretty much saw the towers collapse. It was just terrible, a terrible thing,” Antonnicola said. Recalling the event,  Antonnicola is upset by the ordeal.

“[I felt] angry that anyone could do this to anyone else. Angry that we as a country were so caught off guard by this. Felt it shouldn’t have been allowed to happen. I felt our country was more secure than this,” Antonnicola said. His empathy is apparent as well.

“I just felt sorry for the people that were on that building that ended up dying that way,” Antonnicola said.

Mark Healy is an AP European History and Psychology teacher. Looking back, Healy still remembers understanding the intensity of the situation.

“It was just the immediate realization that we’re vulnerable to outside attack,” said Healy.

“I guess it was just finalization of who was actually responsible for it. I don’t think I viewed them any worse than I might have viewed anybody else who would have done the attacks because at that point in time, al Qaeda, we didn’t know anything about them. This was kind of the first time that they had kind of come out as a group at all, that I was aware of,” Healy said. Healy still has a hard time dealing with the feelings to this day.

“I would say that on the day, on September 11, a lot of those feelings and emotions I had come back out, but I just try to live my life as I would and reflect when time allows, I guess is a good way of saying that,” Healy said.

Joe Carico is a U.S. History teacher and has been at the high school a total of 24 years. He is also the assistant football coach. He talks about his thoughts as the event was taking place.

“And I said how can a pilot be that bad? I was not thinking anything about anything other than ‘Are you kidding me? Somebody is that bad of a pilot and they flew into the world trade center?’,” said Carico.  Carico still remembers the feelings of shock that he experienced on that day.

“I just think they were both just were like unbelievable, even more unbelievable, I mean, two?,” said Carico.

Even with the amount of time that has passed since the event, teachers at HHS still have a clear memory of the day.

“I have never forgotten. You don’t forget things like that ever,” Antonnicola said.