NORTH CANAAN — North Canaan observed the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks with a reading of the names of nearly 3,000 people killed at the World Trade Center in New York City, the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, and aboard United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania after passengers fought back against the hijackers.
Brian Allyn of North Canaan, a member of the Canaan Fire Company, and Nick DeAngelis of Salisbury coordinated the observance Friday, Sept. 11, at the firehouse.
A 20-by-40-foot American flag hung from the extended ladder of a fire truck.
Allyn set up a wireless public-address speaker outside. Inside, a table held a microphone and two thick loose-leaf notebooks containing the victims’ names.
Litchfield County Dispatch, which handles emergency calls for the Northwest Corner, issued an alert at 8:46 a.m., the time the first hijacked plane struck the World Trade Center’s North Tower on Sept. 11, 2001.
Nancy O’Connor of North Canaan was the first volunteer reader. She said it was important to her to acknowledge the victims, particularly “the people who went to help, who didn’t come out.”
Madi Long
Lou Timolat of Falls Village was the second reader, beginning around 9:30 a.m.
Before taking over from O’Connor, he said, “I was in the National Guard at the time, and got called in. This was an act of war, directed at civilians. We endured it and recovered from it, and it’s worth venerating.”
DeAngelis said past observances included more elaborate ceremonies. The First Litchfield Artillery Regiment would set up a cannon in front of St. Joseph’s Church, across the street from the firehouse, and fire it at significant moments in the Sept. 11 timeline.
Previous observances also included readings of the names of service members who died in the War on Terror. In recent years, however, the ceremony has been scaled back.
The firehouse displayed several exhibits, including relics from the World Trade Center site and an extensive timeline of the attacks.
“People will come one and two at a time,” DeAngelis said at the beginning of the observance. “And by the end of the day we’ll have had two or three hundred people come by.”
Madi Long
