How do you remember 9/11?
Hello, we’re a tiny community newspaper based in Santa Ana, and we want to ask the community how they remember 9/11 in Orange County ahead of the 25th anniversary of the attacks.
Where were you on 9/11? Who were you with? How did your day start, like routines and such? How did you learn about it? How did it affect you? How did you explain what was happening to your child(ren)? Did you know what was happening at first or did it take a moment to set in? Were classes cancelled? Which churches held mass?
All of these details will be incredibly helpful. Much of the archive that exists did not detail much of the local Santa Ana scope (including Daily Pilot, OC Register and LA Times). However it is our understanding that the Register still printed and worked out from the building on Grand, where several extras were printed in the thousands. Some of these are in The Santanero’s collection.
The first plane struck at 5:43 AM Pacific Time to give you an estimate how when the attacks began and what time it was here at home.
Anyone with photographs or home VHS footage from that day or shortly afterward is welcome to share with us. If you developed film strips from that day or afterward in relation to the terror attacks that aren’t scanned, we can scan them at no cost.
“I was only five months old at the time. My mom, who was already at work in the early hours, tells me my grandma and grandpa were on the way to Norms on Main and 17th. My mom watched 9/11 unfold from the breakroom.” – Daniel Diaz, Editor & Publisher of The Santanero