CAPE CORAL, Fla. (WINK) \u2014 Twenty-five years after the Sept. 11 attacks, people across Southwest Florida gathered Thursday to remember the lives lost and reflect on the events that changed the country forever.<\/p>\n
In Cape Coral, a memorial ceremony was held at City Hall, where community members came together to honor the 2,977 people killed in the attacks.<\/p>\n
The ceremony began with a performance by the Oasis High School Choir, followed by the presentation of colors by the Cape Coral Fire and Police Honor Guards.<\/p>\n
Then came a powerful tribute: 2,977 flags were planted across the lawn of City Hall, each one bearing the name of someone who died on September 11, 2001.<\/p>\n
Among those attending was retired FDNY firefighter Rich Bailey, who was a first responder at Ground Zero and worked at the site for months following the attacks.<\/p>\n
Bailey said the memories of that time remain vivid \u2014 but so does something else: the sense of unity he saw across the country in the days and weeks afterward.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose days afterwards \u2026 it didn\u2019t matter,\u201d Bailey said, recalling people standing along the streets in the early morning hours, sometimes in the rain, holding signs thanking first responders.<\/p>\n
Bailey said he wishes the country could return to the sense of togetherness people felt after the attacks.<\/p>\n
The ceremony also brought together people with very different connections to Sept. 11.<\/p>\n
Some were living in New York at the time. Others were first responders who worked at Ground Zero. Some were already living in Southwest Florida when the attacks happened.<\/p>\n
And a younger generation was there, too \u2014 people who were not yet born when the Twin Towers fell.<\/p>\n
For those who remember that morning, the memories remain remarkably specific: where they were, who they were with and the moment they realized the country was under attack.<\/p>\n
Twenty-five years later, those memories continue to be passed down.<\/p>\n
For Bailey, that may be one of the few silver linings.<\/p>\n
People are still showing up, and they are still remembering.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CAPE CORAL, Fla. (WINK) \u2014 Twenty-five years after the Sept. 11 attacks, people across Southwest Florida gathered Thursday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":397058,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210,325,115],"class_list":["post-397057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news","tag-lee","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=397057"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397057\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/397058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}