Today marks 23 years since the United States faced the worst coordinated terrorist attack against our homeland in our nation’s history when 19 terrorists from militant islamic extreme group Al Qaeda hijacked four commercial aircraft on course from the east coast to California and crashed them into the north and south towers of the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and an open field in Pennsylvania near Washington D.C. after passengers fought back. This disaster resulted in around 3,000 deaths of passengers, first responders and civilians on Sept. 11 alone. More succumbed to illnesses and injuries in the years after because of their exposure to toxic materials.

That resulted in around 6,000 additional injuries.

While it has been over two decades since tragedy struck, most American citizens that were alive for the attacks can recall where they were on that day. For people with first-person experience, the memories are even more harrowing.

We sent our reporter Dakota Bruton to the streets of Nashville to ask locals and visitors where they were on Sept. 11, 2001 and if this day could repeat itself.

Lou Davis

Beaufort, S.C.

“I was in a meeting in Huntsville, Ala., I walked into a room and they had the first tower pictures. I was supposed to be in a meeting in D.C. two days later and the plane that hit the Pentagon would have flown over the room I would have been in. Obviously the flights were grounded so I didn’t go. They were grounded for the next four days or so.

“If you believe everything you hear about immigrants coming in that aren’t vetted, yeah they could easily put something together. There are enough strong religious aspects in some of those groups.”

Larry Rademacher

Greenwood

“I was in Florida on the beach with my wife, my wife’s birthday is 9/11. We walked nto a candy store and there it was on TV. We were staying at my mom and dad’s trailer and they were here in Indiana and so one of the neighbors had to go to Cincinnati, she had a Cadillac so I drove her Cadillac into Cincinnati and my wife’s mom and dad came to Cincinnati from Indy to pick us up.

“We were very upset with what happened, as we are right now with what’s going on in the world. The U.S. is unfortunately doing more than they need to and we are depleting some of our resources that we might need in the future. I get what they are trying to do, but we can’t help the whole world.

“There’s enough immigrants in here we don’t know what type they are, if they have a record or where some of them even are. If they could get together, there’s no telling what they could do. “

Jewell Moore

Terre Haute

“I was at work, I’m retired now. It was sad, that’s the only thing I can think of. It was really sad.

“No, I hope not (it won’t happen again). I hope it doesn’t, but you never know, there’s so many cruel people out here that you don’t really know.”

Tom Preston

Brown County

“I was home when I first saw it, running a construction company at the time. We had the TV news on in the family room and we were in the breakfast room having coffee. I saw the replay of the first plane that hit the towers and I thought it was a private plane that had flowing into it. I got my wife to look at it and while we were discussing how that happened, the second plane hit and that’s when we knew, oh golly it’s not an accident. I remember having a sinking feeling and thinking, ‘this is not good’. I had a meeting I had to get to and when I got to it they had the TV on, we met in front of the TV. I remember getting home and walking outside and thinking everything felt different and I couldn’t figure out why. There were no planes in the air. I was in Fishers and there was a small municipal airport close by so we were used to always hearing planes take off, and there was nothing. It was eerie.

“Something like that certainly could (happen again), I don’t think it would be the same. There’s always that possibility.”

Kate Webster

Lafayette

“I was at home with my family, my neice was here from Arizona. I remember it really well, I had to work that night so we had a candlelight vigil for it, just us employees. It was pretty sad.

“I don’t trust foreigners, I don’t trust anyone. There’s too much hate in the world. I don’t care what color you are, there’s just too much hate. After Sept. 11, it’s scary.”

Sean Hildreth

Seymour

“I was living in Indianapolis when it happened. I was just getting up for work and my mom called me and said a plane just hit the World Trade Center and I turned on the TV in time to see the second plane hit and then called my wife at work. I told them all about it and then we were all watching it crying and shocked together rght as everything collapsed. Then I went to work, because we didn’t know what to do and I taught swim lessons to a bunch of children who had no idea what was going on. One of the most eerie memories I have is how quiet everything was in the sky after that because we were in the direct flight path to the airport at that time so we would have planes all the time and then it was just strange to have that complete silence. It was heartbreaking.

“Maybe (it will not happen again) in the same format, we have to be vigilant because there’s always people evolving ways to do harm to others. We just need to be aware. Do I think the exact same thing is possible? Yes, but like? No.”

Grant Didomizio

Evansville

“My family was right outside of New York City, my dad had visited for a telecom conference and so there was definitely interesting stuff going on after that time regarding telecoms. There’s this whole idea about beefing up the security system. Of course when you’re looking at this one specific big threat then you’re focused on all the other specific threats like the one second after type of thing, ‘what if there’s an EMP (electromagnetic pulse attack)’, so there’s been a lot of hardening of different telecoms especially near Crane Naval Base after that. It affected that stuff my father worked on. That’s about as much as I can say, I was seven months old.”