The Jefferson Jr. High School eighth-graders listening to John Tabisz’s stories of Ground Zero Monday were just three years old when Tabisz searched for survivors in the debris. Some of their parents picked them up from preschool when they heard the news. Tabisz, a lieutenant for the Darien-Woodridge Fire District, told the students of the days he spent at Ground Zero Monday morning. Alexa Dimovski and Tyler Korous, both 13, said their parents had told them about Sept. 11. They had been told it was a terrorist attack; the largest attacks on American soil. But they had only recently seen …
Following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the Darien-Woodridge Fire District fire chief sent out an e-mail to his company. Don’t leave for Ground Zero, it said. Lt. John Tabisz did. “As fireman, we’re supposed to go do something,” he told eighth-graders at Jefferson Jr. High School Monday. “I asked my wife, and she said, ‘Go. You can’t watch the television anymore. You can’t be as aggravated as you are.’” They left on Sept. 15, once it seemed no more attacks would occur on the United States. Tabisz and other local firefighters drove the 13 hours to Ground Zero in one day. He took vacation …
Twenty-nine minutes. That was the time between the collapse of the South Tower of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, and the collapse of the North Tower. To commemorate the 10th anniversary of the attacks, Woodridge held to that timeframe, starting its memorial at 8:59 a.m., the time the South Tower fell, and ending it at 9:28 a.m., when the North Tower fell. The Woodridge Police Department Honor Guard hosted the memorial service at the village's Towne Center. The ceremony started with a greeting from Chief Steve Herron and the raising of the flag to half staff with the Jefferson Jr…
Dozens of residents young and old came to the Darien-Woodridge Fire District headquarters Sunday to mark the 10th anniversary of the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. Many were parents whose children were too young or not born when the attacks occured. In this video, two families share how they are teaching their children about what happened that day.
It's a short video but a very powerful moment from Sunday's Darien-Woodridge Fire District 9/11 ceremony. The ceremony took place at the fire district's headquarters in Darien.
Ten years later, Darien resident Tom Jones told a crowd at the Darien-Woodridge Fire District headquarters how he escaped the South Tower of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. Jones had started working for Morgan Stanley in July 2001 and traveled to New York City office on Sept. 9, 2001, for a business trip. He took part in meetings on Sept. 10 and was on a coffee break around 8:45 a.m.on Sept. 11 when he noticed black smoke coming from the North Tower. That's when he started his descent from the 61st floor to safety.
Melody Finnegan was getting ready to go for a run. It was a bright, sunny morning in New York City, a day unlike most in the city because it was sunny with a cool breeze. Her husband, Sean, was off at meetings on Madison Avenue, and since she didn’t often get the chance to get a run in she was looking forward to it. Tying her shoes and preparing to set off from the brownstone the couple was staying at on 13th Street, she recalled hearing a plane banking up above. The sound didn’t seem right. “I had the thought, somebody is in trouble, or we’re in trouble,” Melody Finnegan said during an …
On Sept. 11, 2001, I was 13 and an eighth-grader at Eisenhower Jr. High School. I remember being in English class, my first period of the day, and a rumor murmuring something had happened. My teacher wouldn't speak of it. We went to our other classes. Then, right before lunch, we asked our social studies teacher to tell us what was happening. She spoke succinctly: "There was an attack on the World Trade Center." We were shocked, but also confused. We didn't know that the weapons had been hijacked planes. We didn't know that there was also an attack on the Pentagon. No one spoke of anyone …
There are few events that have the power to conjure an emotional response from an entire country. Sept. 11, 2001, had that power. It was also Chris Johnson's 10th birthday. “I came home and (my mom) was crying," he said. "Someone said something and that’s when I saw it all on TV. I was confused; I didn’t really know what was going on." His mom, Donna Johnson, remembers the day more clearly. “He was seeing the replay on TV, and we were trying to explain to him what had happened," she said. "Chris looked at me as I was crying and said, ‘It's OK, Mommy. Don’t worry, no one has ruined my birthday…
As a member of the Naperville Fire Department and Missouri Task Force One, a FEMA search and rescue team, the most serious events Chuck Wehrli responded to were the Plainfield tornado or refinery explosions in Lemont. But, that was before Sept. 11, 2001. When 9/11 happened, the Naperville resident was immediately mobilized with Missouri Task Force One to respond and help with search and rescue in New York City. Now retired, Wehrli was assigned as a safety officer and with other first responders, flew in a C-130—one of seven planes allowed to fly after the attack—heading for Ground Zero. As he…
Although they took place hundreds of miles away, the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, still deeply affected those in the Woodridge area. Patch told the stories last week of two families who lost loved ones in the attacks on the World Trade Center. Hinsdale-Clarendon Hills Patch spoke with 25-year Hinsdale resident Sue Mladenik, whose husband, Jeff, was Hinsdale resident Sue Mladenik's husband Jeff was on board one of the flights that hit the World Trade Center. Listen to her memories of the day by clicking on the video to the right. A Lemont woman shared the loss of her cousin with Lemont Patch. …
Want to tell your story? E-mail melissat@patch.com. Deborah Novotny Deborah Novotny was at work when she heard on the radio that an airplane had hit one of the Twin Towers. She returned to her home in Woodridge that night around 8 p.m. and turned on the news. She put her dog outside and walked out to her backyard. “My home is in the flight pattern for Midway and O’Hare,” she said. “I looked up and I could not see a single plane in sight. Absolutely nothing. That’s when I knew this was very serious stuff.” Novotny said she learned how important saying, “I love you” to friends and family was …
