Phoenix’s 9/11 Story: The 62 Arizonans Who Answered the Call

For those of us old enough to remember September 11, 2001, there are certain images that never really leave. The smoke rising over Manhattan. People standing in streets staring upward. First responders moving toward something everyone else was trying to get away from. And then, in the days that followed, the enormous pile of debris where the World Trade Center had stood.

For most people in the Phoenix Valley, all of that was happening more than 2,000 miles away. We watched it unfold on television from homes, offices, schools and fire stations here in Arizona.

But 9/11 did not remain a distant story for long.

Phoenix became part of what happened next.

Arizona Task Force 1, an urban search and rescue team based in Phoenix and managed by the Phoenix Fire Department, was called to respond. Sixty-two members of the team—firefighters, police officers, medical personnel and dog handlers—left Arizona and traveled across the country to Ground Zero.

It is a detail of September 11 that many people in Phoenix may not know.

Phoenix answered the call

Those responders went from the familiar streets and neighborhoods of the Valley to a place unlike anything most of us could imagine.

The City of Phoenix describes members of Arizona Task Force 1 working near the still-smoldering and hazardous site, searching and working through debris alongside responders from across the country.

There was nothing routine about the work waiting for them.

They were entering a disaster site where families were still hoping for answers, where first responders had already suffered unimaginable losses, and where the physical conditions themselves were dangerous.

Yet they went.

That is part of Phoenix’s 9/11 story.

Twenty-five years later, remembering looks different

This year marks 25 years since September 11, 2001.

Time changes the way an event is carried. There are now adults working, raising families and becoming leaders in our community who were not alive on September 11. For them, 9/11 is something learned through photographs, videos, classrooms and the stories of people who were there.

Phoenix is recognizing that reality this year.

On September 10, the City of Phoenix is bringing members of Arizona Task Force 1 together with young people for an event called “Voices Across Generations.” The idea is to give a generation that did not experience September 11 firsthand the opportunity to sit with people who responded to Ground Zero, ask questions and hear what happened in their own words.

There is something meaningful about that.

“Never Forget” has to mean remembering people

“Never Forget” has been repeated so often over the past 25 years that it can almost become something we say automatically.

But remembering has to be more than repeating a phrase.

It means continuing to tell the stories of real people. It means remembering those who went to work that morning and never came home. It means remembering the families whose lives changed in an instant. And it means remembering the people who saw another community in need and decided to go help.

For Phoenix, 62 members of Arizona Task Force 1 are part of that memory.

They were not responding because New York was their city. They were responding because people needed them.

They packed their equipment, left the Valley and traveled across the country into one of the darkest moments in American history.

A national tragedy answered by local communities

That is one of the things that remains so striking about September 11.

The attacks happened in specific places, but the response came from everywhere. Fire departments, police departments, medical teams, search-and-rescue units, volunteers and ordinary citizens moved toward communities that needed help.

Phoenix was one of those communities that answered.

This year, as we mark 25 years since September 11, there will understandably be attention on the places where the attacks occurred: New York City, the Pentagon and the field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. That is where so much of the loss happened and where so many lives were changed forever.

But here in the Phoenix Valley, we also have a story worth remembering.

It is the story of 62 Arizonans who left home and went to Ground Zero.

It is a story of service when service was needed most.

And now, a quarter century later, it is a story worth telling again—not because Phoenix needs a place in the history of September 11, but because remembering the people who showed up helps us understand something about what that moment asked of communities across the country.

Here in Phoenix, we remember

On September 11, we remember those who were lost.

We remember the first responders who ran toward danger.

We remember the families who still carry that day with them.

And here in Phoenix, we remember the people from our own community who answered the call.

We remember. And we remain grateful.

Learn more about
Arizona Task Force 1
and the City of Phoenix’s
25th anniversary 9/11 remembrance.