Mr. Casey Lambert of J.L. Boren Elementary School stands in reverence as the 10 year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks approaches. As he begins to reminisce, Mr. Lambert’s emotions start to surface.

“I can remember that day so vividly,” Mr. Lambert said.

He remembers his exact classroom and even where some of the students were sitting. Around 7:45 a.m., Lambert remembers being called into the hall, along with all the other teachers, by the principal.

“We all panicked. We couldn’t figure out what was going on,” Mr. Lambert said.

The teachers were told the first tower had been hit, but the major details had yet to be confirmed.

“ [The principal told us to] try to make it as regular a day as possible,” Mr. Lambert said.

Class started, and Mr. Lambert felt bothered by the news he had received roughly 15 minutes before. Trying to remain calm, Lambert conducted class as usual.

“[Administration] told us to not turn on TVs [in the classroom], turn on computers, make or answer calls. They had a TV set up in the workroom which was kept on all day, so we could come in and watch, stay informed and then leave,” Mr. Lambert said.

As far as the students knew, it was just another ordinary day. Neither Tucker nor Long remember many kids leaving their class.

“There were quite a few kids that left that day. Not from our room, but from quite a few,” Mr. Lambert said.

Class ended as normal, but Lambert couldn’t shake his uneasy feelings. Turning on the TV at home, Mr. Lambert began to realize the gravity of the situation.

“Once the reality set in, we realized our lives would never be the same,” Mr. Lambert said. “The next day we were called in again, and we were told that if the students asked any questions, to be very vague and direct them to their parents.”

Starting class Mr. Lambert expected a flood of questions from the students, but he was kind of surprised when the kids weren’t asking many questions. The day went on as normal until the announcements came on. Thinking about all that had happened, Mr.  Lambert found the day’s moment of silence particularly emotional.

“I started crying during the moment of silence, I heard kids talking about [us] crying, so I had to face the wall so they wouldn’t see,” Mr. Lambert said. “I can’t believe it has been 10 years already.”

Andrew Tucker, 12, and Taylor Long, 12, were in Mr. Lambert’s second grade class on 9/11. They recall the events surrounding them and their school as the events of that day unfolded.

Here are some interesting facts about the attacks on America.

2,749 death certificates were filed relating to the WTC attacks, as of February 2005.

13 people died after the disaster, from injuries received on September 11; three of these people died in Massachusetts, Missouri, and New Jersey, and the rest died in New York.

Of the 2,749 people who died, 2,117 (77%) were males and 632 (23%) were females.

1,588 (58%) were forensically identified from recovered physical remains.

The median age for the victims was 39 years (range: 2-85 years); the median age was 38 years for females (range: 2-81 years) and 39 years for males (range: 3-85 years). Three people were aged under 5 years, and three were aged over 80 years.

23 New York City Police Officers died on September 11th, 2001.

People from 83 different countries died in the attacks on the World Trade Center.

Each of the WTC towers had 110 stories. Tower One (the North Tower, which featured a massive 360 foot high TV antenna added in 1978) stood 1,368 feet  high, and Tower Two (the South Tower, which contained the observation deck) was 1,362 feet high. The length and breadth of the towers were 208 feet  x 208 feet. Although only Tower 1 featured an antenna, the structure of both buildings were designed to carry a broadcast mast.

Of the 110 stories, eight were set aside for technical services (mechanical floors), in four two-floor areas evenly spread up the building. All the remaining floors were free for open-plan offices. Each tower had 3.8 million square feet of office space.

The complex, located in the heart of New York City’s downtown financial district, contained 13.4 million square feet of office space, almost four percent of Manhattan’s entire office inventory. During the 1990s some 500 companies, especially financial firms, had offices in the complex, including Morgan Stanley, Aon Corporation, Salomon Brothers, and the Port Authority itself.

Each floor of the Twin Towers was approximately one acre in size.

When the Towers collapsed they fell nearly ¼ of a mile to earth, and reached a speed of 120 miles per hour.

The youngest passenger on the hijacked jets was Christine Hanson on United Airlines Flight 175. She was 2 and on her first trip to Disneyland.

The oldest passenger on the hijacked jets was Robert Norton on American Airlines Flight 11. He was 82.

The New York City Fire Department lost 343 firefighters, almost half the number of on-duty deaths in the department’s 100-year history.

The south tower collapsed at a magnitude of 2.1 on a seismograph; the north tower collapsed with a magnitude of 2.3, according to Columbia University in New York.

from: http://wtc911.us/wtc_911_facts.html