Big week planned to commemorate 9/11

On Saturday, it will be 20 years since the day that changed the lives of all Americans. The public is invited to a 9/11 remembrance ceremony at 8:25 a.m. on Saturday at the Shady Lane Memorial Park on Shady Lane Drive. The Huron County Veteran Service Commission and Northern Ohio Fraternal Order of the Leatherheads Society (Northern Ohio F.O.O.L.S.) are partnering to put on the ceremony, which is open to the public. It will be a two-hour event to coincide with the timeline of that tragic day. There will be audio, music and visual components. A limited number of seats will be provided, but residents are encouraged to bring chairs. Parking will be available at the Huron County Department of Job and Family Services, the front lot of the Huron County Sheriff's Office building, and Norwalk High School. There will be shuttles running from the different parking lots to the ceremony site before and afterward. The shuttles will not run during the program. There also is a program in Monroeville as the Huron County Democratic Party will be there for a 9/11 ceremony at the village hall. The event, which takes place from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, is open to the public. The ceremony will commemorate and recognize first responders and military service persons. Also, the party hopes to invoke the spirit of unity among Americans in the aftermath of the attack on that date 20 years ago. People everywhere will hold ceremonies and remembrances of the event. There will be many television shows this week covering the event from the time it happened to now. The events of 9/11 have changed the world as we know it. I have been asked to talk at Saturday's event in Norwalk. I am looking forward to sharing my memories, but I am also looking forward to listening to what others have to say. There are so many stories to be told. The Weekender, published by the Sandusky Register and Norwalk Reflector, will publish a special section Saturday remembering 9/11. I wrote a column for the section about what happened in the Reflector newsroom that day. Here is a portion of that column: I remember that day as we were putting out a newspaper. At that time, we printed the paper in Norwalk and our deadline was 11 a.m. As we all sat there in the newsroom we could see horrific history in the making. Right in front of our eyes, we could see our lives would never be the same. And, it still is affecting us as we learned last week (Aug. 26) that Max Zoviak, a 2017 graduate of Edison High School, was killed in Afghanistan as the U.S. was pulling out from a 20-year war started in October 2001, because of 9/11. Soviak's funeral will be Monday. As the news unfolded that day, we got to work in the newsroom. Our news editor at the time jumped right on the Associated Press site and downloaded a photo. It was a picture of the two Twin Towers still standing but were smoking. It was a good thing because not long after that the site shut down — it was overloaded with other news agencies looking for the same images of the tragedy. We sent out two of our reporters, Erica Shoemaker and Scott Seitz. Shoemaker talked with Huron County Emergency Management Agency Director Bill Ommert. "My initial reaction to hearing the news was 'what a horrible accident,'" Ommert said. Within minutes, his opinion changed. "One airplane could have been a mistake, a second one flying directly into the building would lead me to speculate terrorist attacks," he said. He said attacks like that could happen anywhere, including Ohio. "There are larger federal buildings in Columbus and Cleveland," he said. "It is hard to say they are not susceptible." He added there always are ongoing measures to keep the local area safe. "Locally, we are currently proactive in planning and researching all terrorist activities and groups," he said. "There are some forms of terrorist groups in every area. We try to monitor them and get information about them to do our best to keep our area safe." Seitz talked to five local residents — Norwalk Fire Chief Robert Bores, New London resident King Roland, his wife Jean Roland, Milan resident Ken Delamater and Sue Hayes, director of the Huron County Humane Society. "I'm shocked," Bores said. "I saw the video and my heart goes out to the rescue workers who were on the ground staged under the first fire." Bores noted the enormity of fighting the fire. "It would be a major undertaking to fight that fire," he said. "They had no opportunity to fight the fire. The plane came in at an angle so it would take out as many floors as possible. "I don't know what to say. This picture is worth 1,000 words." We did the best we could to collect all of the information and get the stories ready for the front page. We had mailroom workers and drivers all waiting for their papers, but we had no concern for the deadline. We needed to get the story. And we did. Finally, sometime about 1 p.m., we got the Reflector out and on the streets. See the rest of the story and many others written by the talented writers of the Register and Reflector, along with many other stories. It is a special section you will want to keep. It is a day when many Americans lost their lives and the start of a 20-year war that just ended. God bless Max Soviak and all of the Americans who died defending this country. Joe Centers is Reflector managing editor. He can be reached at jcenters@norwalkreflector.com.