25 years ago on what was a beautiful September morning, New York, Long Island, America and the world changed forever.

A major disaster is occurring in New York City this morning.

And I realized what had happened that the building had collapsed.

Our very freedom came under attack in a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist acts.

Nearly 2800 lives were lost in Lower Manhattan and hundreds of Long Island families devastated.

I had hope until I went down to ground zero.

I knew that day Ronnie was gone.

There was no thinking anybody survived that.

Children forced to grow up without a mother or father.

25, 50, 100 years later, it doesn't matter.

It's him not being here for different milestones is what affect me.

A quarter century later, the terror attacks are still killing people, with first responders still fighting to survive the aftermath.

My heart, my lungs are shot.

Everything's shot.

All these years later, the loss remains, but so does the legacy.

I never imagined I'd be a fireman.

And a new generation is being asked to remember a day they never lived through.

It really changed how I saw how people faced the hardships with it, how many people helped and how it brought America together.

None of us will ever forget this day.

Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of America.

I'm Newsday TV's Virginia Huie at the National 9/11 Memorial and Museum in Lower Manhattan.

Twenty-five years ago, as the deadliest terrorist attack on U.S.

soil was unfolding, Newsday photographers were among those behind the lens documenting that day, witnessing history while capturing it.

They take us back to September 11, 2001, to the moments they will never forget and some pictures they've never shared before.

The phone started ringing in my apartment.

On the line was Newsday's photo editor telling me that the plane hit the World Trade Center.

I take out my Breaking News Network pager and I'm looking at it and I'm like I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

We have a hundred people trapped on the 105th floor of the One World Trade Center.

I just got up, got out of bed, went through the window, up the fire escape to the roof and then I looked towards Manhattan and I saw the Twin Tower, both of them already smoke coming out of it.

I parked the car, got on the bike, grabbed the cameras and I rode in.

The whole thing was just like hard to believe.

It was like suddenly you were in a movie that was real.

I saw people jumping out of the building just now.

I'm trying to save my sister so I'm like, "Did you see that building?"

I saw the people running north on Greenwich Street.

I'm like, "What the hell is going on?"

And I hear this incredible roar.

"We crashed!

The other train center's down!

It's down!

It's down!"

And I realized what had happened, that the building had collapsed.

Big boom, come down the steps, everything fine until we got to the basement and then everything just fell in.

I got trapped under there when another guy crawled out, kept getting hit in the head, hit bags all around, finally we clawed our way out over the rubble.

I'm walking around and all of a sudden this cop yells at me and says, "Hey you, news media!"

He says, "If you want to be here, you can be here, you can take all the pictures you want but you gotta work."

I just kind of joined the group and blended in and walked right into Ground Zero.

The group I was with, they got into this human chain, taking out the boxes of frozen food out of a freezer from the Burger King.

I'm guessing they were going to use it as a morgue of some kind.

I don't want to interfere, so the best thing I could do was just help out.

And everybody's trying to do their part, you know?

We made like a human chain and they were just pulling debris off of this one spot the firefighters were.

Sorry.

So it's rough thinking about it.

25 years later.

It's one of those once in a lifetime photos, you know, they're passing them down.

They're holding like firefighters are holding it.

And I remember I got to I got to get this picture.

You know, he was really screaming.

He was in pain.

What had happened was he broke his scapula.

I think he told me himself later.

And when they pulled him out, they pulled him out by his arms.

And that's what actually brought him back to consciousness, the pain.

Like a week later, Newsday sent me to a firefighter's house, Armando Reno.

He lived in Whitestone.

And I went to his house and I photographed him with his daughter and his wife.

Immediately right after I can see that everybody's coming together to try to help everybody, you know.

The world changed that day.

It changed people's, everybody's life, Neocor's life, my life.

Anybody who had been there that day is not going to forget.

Nearly 3,000 names are etched into the memorial behind me.

Every one of them represents a lost loved one and for thousands of children, a parent who went to work and never came home.

Patricia Smith of East Hampton was just two years old when her mother, NYPD officer Moira Smith, was killed after saving hundreds of civilians from the burning towers.

25 years later, Patricia is a living symbol of 9/11's resilience.

It is one of the most poignant images capturing the loss felt by the more than 3,000 children whose parents were killed on 9/11.

The photograph of two-year-old Patricia Smith in a red velvet dress with her late mother's NYPD Medal of Honor draped around her neck tugged at heartstrings around the world.

As the daughter of the only female NYPD officer killed on September 11th, Patricia grew up a symbol of 9/11's resilience.

From a very early age I understood, you know, sacrifice and courage and what that looked like.

25 years later, Patricia is a poised young woman, striving each day to keep alive the heroic memory of the mother she hardly knew.

Unfortunately, I was too young.

I don't have any independent memories of my mom.

You know, it kind of made me grow up with this very unique sense of deep loss and deep pride.

Her mother, Moira Smith, was the first officer to report the terrorist attack after witnessing American Airlines Flight 11 strike the North Tower.

She helped hundreds of injured people escape the burning buildings before she died when the South Tower collapsed.

Recovered from the rubble were her dented police badge and leather gun holster.

She was 38.

At her funeral, little Patricia brought the city to tears when she accepted the flag and gave her fallen mother a final salute.

I just remember in the beginning it was really hard for me to feel sad, which probably sounds kind of odd, but I was so young, like I said, I don't really have my own memories.

Through photographs and stories told by family, Patricia pieced together an understanding of her mother as a proud Irish-American with a caring soul and a fearless spirit.

Moira once ran with the bulls in Spain and swam across New York's Lake Placid.

She was a beacon in the lives of those around her.

You can see it in every picture that my family has of her.

She always has a bright smile.

People are always around her smiling.

She loved her family.

She loved what she did.

She loved being a cop.

And it makes me happy because it's so nice to know that I came from such a wonderful person but at the same time it's so sad because I never got to experience that wonderful person.

Patricia credits her father, James Smith, a retired NYPD officer, with being a pillar of strength and comfort.

He was always there, he was always a rock.

He took me to every event.

There really wasn't a like sugarcoating period to be honest and I think that helped me growing up.

Over the years, Patricia has embraced her role as the keeper of her late mother's legacy.

One of many acts of love and remembrance came in 2011 when then 12-year-old Patricia spoke before thousands on the 10th anniversary of September 11th.

Mom, I am proud to be your daughter.

You will always be my hero and the pride of New York City.

The passage of time has only deepened Patricia's pride.

I want her to be remembered for the way that she lived and the way that she lived was also the way that she died, which is being around people, helping people, serving others.

Today, Patricia continues to honor her mother's legacy while building one of her own.

She's pursuing a law degree at Fordham University and hopes to become an advocate for those in need.

I hope that she knows that we all love her and that we all miss her and that, you know, I'm doing everything that I can to make her proud.

FDNY firefighter Ronnie Gies of Merritt gave his life on 9/11 doing what he did best, answering the call, running toward danger and saving lives.

His three sons made sure his legacy would live on.

All three joined the ranks of the bravest in honor of their fallen father.

Never forget.

Never forget that these heroes gave their lives trying to rescue people.

At the Giest family home in Merrick, "Never Forget" is not a slogan, but a way of life.

Nearly every nook and cranny is filled with mementos honoring their patriarch and hero, fallen FDNY firefighter Ronnie Gies.

He was the best.

It's been 25 years since Ronnie answered his final call on September 11th.

His widow, Carol Gies, says the loss feels everlasting.

I still grieve every day.

I'll grieve for the rest of my life for the man I loved.

Ronnie and Carol celebrated their 20th wedding anniversary six days before 9/11.

In her husband's final moments, Carol was able to see his heroism in action thanks to a photographer's video capturing Ronnie and seven fellow members of Squad 288 responding to the chaos.

All eight men were killed in the collapse of the South Tower.

Ronnie was 43.

It was hard.

It was really hard.

It was numbing.

Carol says what saved her from overwhelming grief was knowing she needed to stay strong for their children.

Tommy, Ronnie, John, and Robert were 18, 16, and 13 at the time.

They're my heartbeat.

My boys are my heartbeat.

They were young.

But I always wanted them to know that their father was looking over them.

Their father was always by their side.

Make decisions that your father would be happy with.

All three of Ronnie's sons followed in their dad's footsteps and became firefighters.

Tommy and Ronnie John joined the FDNY.

Ronnie John was promoted to lieutenant in 2020.

I would have never imagined myself being a fireman.

If you asked me before he died, probably wouldn't have been, you know, top five career choices.

But after he died, we saw what the fire department was all about, the brotherhood, how people are there for you.

The youngest of the Geese brothers, Robert, is the second assistant chief of the Merrick Fire Department, where his father served as chief in the 1990s.

You do things to honor him.

You go to work every day.

You make him proud at work.

You get promotions.

You do different things.

And that's the way I move on and I honor him.

In the last 25 years, milestones have passed without their father.

Birthdays, weddings, and the addition of eight grandchildren.

Carol remarried 10 years ago to Victor Procopio.

I felt Ronnie had a big part of sending him to me and my boys, because my boys love him.

By following Ronnie's example of courage and fortitude, the family found a way out of the darkest of times while never forgetting their fallen hero.

I hope he's looking down and sees that we were able to move on and we miss him, but we got to figure it out.

The death toll from September 11th is still rising, as reflected in this tribute called the 9/11 Memorial Glade.

The granite slabs honor the tens of thousands of responders and survivors who've gotten sick with or died from illnesses linked to the toxic dust at Ground Zero.

North Babylon's Ken George spent several months on the pile, searching the rubble for remains.

Twenty-five years later, he's still paying the price.

Paying the price ain't the word.

It's like a curse.

Ken George of North Babylon remembers 9/11 with each of the 34 pills he takes daily.

He has lung and heart damage, brittle bones, and PTSD.

It's pain 24/7.

And to live like that, and to live on pain meds and this and that, it's a pain.

I never took pills in my life.

George was 37 and working for the New York City Highway Department when terrorists brought down the World Trade Center's Twin Towers on September 11, 2001.

The city dispatched George to help with the search and rescue effort at Ground Zero.

It looked like hell.

It really looked like hell opened up, swallowed everything, and it was just flames all over the place.

George spent more than 750 hours crawling through tunnels and sifting through rubble to recover human remains.

He kept working amid unimaginable destruction to help bring closure to victims' families.

They run up to us, give us pictures of their loved ones, and they're crying.

I look for my daughter, I look for my son, I look for my mother, my father.

But George and many other first responders didn't know at the time they would become victims themselves.

Massive dust clouds from the collapsed Twin Towers contained a toxic brew of pulverized glass, lead, metals, asbestos, dioxins, and other chemicals.

It's like somebody putting a wet, damp rag on your face.

Like that.

You're breathing in the smoke, you know, and it burns.

It burns.

It burns your throat.

George developed a chronic cough and a myriad of other ailments.

He was forced to retire in 2006.

My heart, my lungs are shot, everything's shot.

PTSD.

I got so much stuff wrong because of 9/11.

25 years after the terrorist attacks, thousands of first responders and civilians are still suffering from 9/11-related illnesses, and the death toll is climbing.

According to the World Trade Center Health Program, more than 9,000 have died from toxic exposures linked to the disaster.

That's three times the number of lives lost on September 11th itself.

Here on Long Island, 345 names will be added to the 9/11 Responders Remembered Park this year.

The pace is accelerating as cancers take hold.

We're getting decimated by cancer.

There's 152,000 plus people in the World Trade Center Health Program.

51,000 of them plus have a certified 9/11 related cancer.

John Feale, a first responder turned activist, has spent decades fighting for laws to secure health care and compensation for 9/11 responders and survivors.

He helped lead the charge to get the James Zadroga Act passed and signed into law in 2011.

It established the Victim Compensation Fund and World Trade Center Health Program.

This was 2019 when John testified in front of Congress.

In 2019, a measure to make the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund permanent passed in Congress after an emotional push by Phil's team, including comedian and fellow activist John Stewart.

Your indifference cost these men and women their most valuable commodity, time.

Phil says the work is 365 days a year because the illnesses don't stop.

I'm sure we'll be in the DC in the near future and we'll be advocating for illnesses to get added or a piece of legislation that protects that we have now.

This is the rest of our lives.

Back in North Babylon, George is grateful to have lived this long to see his eight grandchildren grow up.

After 25 years, there are hardships, but no regrets.

All I know is that I did my best when I was down there.

The 9 11 Museum holds a collection of iconic steel artifacts from the collapsed World Trade Center.

But pieces of the fallen towers are also on display across Nassau and Suffolk.

They've become the centerpiece of memorials that are still bringing Long Islanders together.

More than two decades after the September 11th terror attacks, pieces of the World Trade Center are imprinted in communities across Long Island.

The steel beams that once framed the towers now stand as permanent reminders of the lives lost on that day and the days after.

Oh, you just get chills through your body.

It's heartwarming and heartbreaking at the same time.

More than 80 locations across Long Island display the authentic steel normally found within memorials decorated with flowers, statues and names etched in stone.

There's no memorial I've seen superior to this one.

I think it's great for those who remember the attacks.

The emotions have not faded.

It's like overwhelming.

It's so long ago, but it feels like yesterday.

But as the years pass, more Children are growing up without their own memories of that day.

Now, Long Islanders tell me these memorials are not only an important way to remember the past, but also an important way to teach the future about what happened.

I like learning about like what time was it and like what happened during the time.

Parents say seeing the steel and reading the stories make the history feel real for those who are not there to bear witness.

I have daughters that weren't here when this happened and we try to educate them as much as you can.

But I think it's important for them to see this and the respect that we have for everybody that was there.

These memorials also give long Islanders a place close to home to honor the victims and the first responders who risked their lives.

It's a beautiful testament to the people who unfortunately, you know, passed away.

Pieces of steel that once symbolized unimaginable destruction are now helping reinforce the lessons of September 11.

So they are never forgotten.

Ken Buffa, Newsday TV.

For many of the 100,000 Muslim Americans living on Long Island, the aftermath of 9/11 brought national scrutiny, fear, and in some cases hate.

A quarter century later, we're looking at what it means to be Muslim on Long Island.

In the hours and days following the terror attacks in September 11th, a quarter century ago, two Long Island Muslims quickly learned that how the world saw their faith had radically changed.

It was kind of very scary in the beginning.

We were very afraid.

Sarwat Paracha and Rayer Imam neither knew each other, but they share their Muslim faith.

Each says they personally felt the suspicion and paranoia post-9/11 directed at Muslims.

Rayer, a highly educated pharmacist in Coram, recalls how some friends tried to disguise anything connected to their faith.

And some people changed their name.

They don't call themselves Muhammad anymore.

They said, "Let's call me Mo."

-For Sarwat, hiding her hijab head covering was not an option, so she rarely went places alone.

-And I remember people calling me names, cursing me, and go back home.

You know, and it happened.

A lot of times, it happened.

-Then, in March of 2003 in Manhattan, her cousin Uzair Paracha would be arrested on terrorism charges.

Her uncle would be arrested as well.

Though both men vigorously denied the charges, friends and even some other Muslims on the island began to shun the family.

People started distancing themselves from us.

Like if they keep connections with us, they would all their kids or they would also be taken into custody and they'll also be jailed.

The two men would be held behind bars for nearly 18 years before having their cases reviewed and thrown out.

The two now live in Pakistan.

Sarwat says she's not angry but sad that innocent family members lost so much.

So 17 to 18 years of their lives they spend in jail in 2026, a quarter century after 9 11.

Sarwat says being Muslim on Long Island, well, things are getting better.

She fears less and she says attitudes are changing.

But she adds, there's still a long way to go.

That's what I'm hoping that things will be different for my kids and my grandkids.

We all belong together.

We need to be kind to us.

We need to understand that everybody is bad.

Everybody has good and bad, but if we look at the good of each person, we can make the world a better place.

There is now an entire generation of Long Islanders with no memory of September 11, 2001.

For today's students, the attacks are history.

Here's how some local schools are keeping the lessons of 9/11 alive.

History is a living, breathing thing.

September 11, 2001 is history for students in classrooms across Long Island.

They weren't born 25 years ago.

But for teachers now teaching about that day and the aftermath, the events can still feel very real, recent and raw.

Here at Bethpage High School, students in a TV media internship created an oral history project by interviewing more than two dozen staffers who lived through that day.

It really changed how I think of the event because I've always thought of it as just like history.

I think what stood out for me was the vividness of like people recalling their personal memory.

The emotional 20-minute documentary is called Our Voices, Our Memory.

We wanted to embed into our video that sense of resiliency, the coming together, the perseverance that we saw as a country and as a community.

Here at Walt Whitman High School, every turn of a magazine page from 25 years ago draws the students in deeper to gain an understanding of a day they've only heard about, but that their teacher and her family lived through.

So I'm going to let you guys explore.

Feel free.

You can pick up.

You can touch.

Nicole Hanovich brings in artifacts for her students to touch and feel.

She talks about her dad, a Port Authority police sergeant at the time.

He was off that day, but made his way in to help.

My father sees that and immediately turns to my mom and says, "This is deliberate.

I have to go in."

I always say it's a good example of primary sources, right?

Having the newspaper from the day after, having the bears from the site.

It really changed how I saw how people faced the hardships with it, how many people helped and how it brought America together.

Here at Seaford High School, English teacher, Christine Lindquist, proposed a New York City in Literature course as a unique way of teaching about September 11th.

Before today, I primarily thought of September 11th as, after hearing different perspectives, I now understand, finish the sentence.

The classroom curriculum encourages students to explore the event through the eyes of the survivors, first responders, grieving family members and the next generation, which is them.

They understand that people died that day, but they don't think about the ramifications of and the enormity and how people's lives completely changed in an instant.

What does the term hero mean to you?

What do you have?

Go ahead.

Someone willing to help others.

Here at Wanta High School, students are examining characteristics that make someone a hero.

Their curriculum is also supplemented by field trips to the 9/11 Museum in Manhattan and also to Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

They had almost like a hands on aha moment.

That is so powerful.

Whether you were someone who experienced it by watching it on the news, you know, because you were alive then or if you're a student today.

That hit home.

The immersive experiences are designed to evoke emotion and encourage connection.

Students tell us they do.

It's just like almost a weight in the air that you can feel.

You know, you can feel the emotions, you know, just being in that place where that happened all those years ago.

25 years ago, we promised we would never forget.

That vow remains alive today as we honor the victims and support the survivors still bearing the deep scars of a day that reshaped our world.

From Lower Manhattan, I'm Virginia Huie.

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