The world remembers September 11, 2001, 20 years after the attacks.

-My memory of that day... ...was cry all day.

This week on Nevada Week, we talk to retired New York City police officers about the attacks and the years since.

Plus, two saplings nurtured from a tree that survived under the twin tower rubble for a month have been planted in Las Vegas.

What the survivor trees mean for Las Vegas.

And Las Vegas dealt with its own tragedy on October 1, 2017.

What do anniversaries like the 20 years of 9/11 mean for the survivors?

♪♪♪ Support for Nevada Week is provided by Senator William H. Hernstadt and additional supporting sponsors.

(Kipp Ortenburger) Twenty years ago, the unthinkable happened.

Hijackers took over four commercial airplanes, flying two into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City and one into the Pentagon in Washington D.C.

The other, as we remember, crashed in a field in Pennsylvania when passengers fought the hijackers, bringing it down rather than having it used as another weapon.

Well, the 9/11 attacks profoundly changed America.

But for some of the people who were there, it is something that's never left them.

I spoke to a group of retired New York City police officers about the attacks and the aftermath.

Charlie Licata and Gene Vitale grew up in the same Brooklyn neighborhood.

They both joined the NYPD, and they both retired from the force in 1988.

The two lifelong friends were together on 9/11.

(Charlie Licata) The morning of 9/11, I was getting dressed to go to the cemetery.

My father's birthday happens to be September 11, and my friend Gene was coming over.

And I was waiting for him to come over, and I got a phone call from a friend of mine.

He says are you watching TV?

I says no, what's up?

A plane just went into the trade center.

With this I walked to my bedroom window because from where I lived, I could look across through Jamaica Bay and see the twin towers, and all of a sudden, I saw the south tower just exploded.

The second plane hit.

Then we realized we were under attack.

(Gene Vitale) I was on the Cross Island Parkway and I turned into the Belt Parkway, and then you can see the two centers, the two World Trade Centers, and the first plane already had crashed into it.

Now, many years ago in New York, there were two planes that collided.

One fell in Brooklyn, the other one fell in Staten Island, and that came to my mind right away.

We had two planes that crashed.

Then when I got to Charlie's house, he says come on, they just put another plane.

And I says we're going to go to war.

We called One PP, which is One Police Plaza.

We wanted to come down to help and they told us no, you stay where you are.

We have a lot of help here.

And you know, it's very traumatic.

We were crying.

We said, how could this happen in the greatest city in the world?

And me and Charlie said oh, man, we got to do something, but unfortunately, we couldn't.

So we went to church and we prayed.

We went to church.

Bill Swierupski was still on the force at the 105th precinct when the attacks happened.

(Bill Swierupski) I was going into the precinct, and I stopped at the deli to get breakfast.

And as the guy's making my bacon and eggs, all of a sudden over the radio, I hear second plane hit the tower.

Keep the food, I'm gone.

I knew exactly what happened just like Charlie said.

He knew we were under attack.

We had the TVs going in the precinct, and I saw the towers come down.

And I just said to one police administrative aide, I said we just lost 20,000 people.

We didn't know they had evacuated that many.

You know, they were lucky.

Edward Johnson was also retired.

He and his wife had moved to Las Vegas two years before.

(Edward Johnson) On 9/11 I was getting ready for work about six o'clock in the morning, and the phone rang.

It was my sister in New York, and she told me that-- she said a plane just hit the trade center, and she worked in a building across the street from the trade center.

She said they're locking them in.

I said, you know, just relax, whatever, and follow the instructions of the police and security, and she said okay and she hung up.

About 15 minutes later she called again.

She said a second plane hit the building.

And at that time, I saw it on the news, and I told her, get out of the building.

Just get out.

My memory of that day... ...was cry all day.

And the fact that I wasn't there, because I felt some of my expertise, whatever expertise I had from the first incident I could have contributed, and I felt weak.

In 1993 I was assigned to the Joint Terrorist Task Force.

I was the executive officer at that time, and then we had the bombing of the World Trade Center and for the next 2-1/2, 3 years, we did the investigation on that.

After the investigation, you know, we kind of brainstormed and said how do we protect and guard against this again, because we know that-- we knew they were coming back.

Dave Casano worked for the Surface Transportation Enforcement District of the NYPD.

(Dave Casano) The awful smells, which the smell of death and a lot of other things in the air that you just never forget.

The visions of the beams that held up the building still smoldering, being pulled out, and they had to hose them down.

I remember them being loaded onto large trucks and every-- you know, depending on the assignment, sometimes a sergeant that was in my unit and myself would lead those trucks up West Street slowly.

There's a tunnel underneath West Street that connects to where the ferries are, and where those trucks would end up depositing those beams onto barges that would be towed across the water to Staten Island.

And those were long nights.

Those were long evenings.

All of the guys are part of the 1013 Club in Las Vegas, a group of retired New York City police officers who find a brotherhood in others who lived similar experiences, especially around September 11.

And then walking around, it was like if you're a history buff and you know any pictures about World War II, the area looked like a bombing raid after-- you know, over Dresden.

It was nothing but dust and debris all over.

We went up and we looked at the the pile, as they called it, and you saw-- you looked at it and you just said to yourself, this is the remains of two 110-story buildings.

It was only about two stories high.

It was incredible.

And the other thing was that you saw red crosses painted into debris all over the place.

That's where they found, you know, firemen and police officers where their scott packs were ringing.

So that was a shocker.

-A couple days later, I had to go up to Carson City so I was driving up there.

I got to Tonopah and they had, you know, the road blocked.

They were doing a fundraiser, and in my car I had two NYPD hats.

So the guy says, oh, you're NYPD?

I said yes, I'm retired.

I showed my ID.

They literally pulled me out of the car, raised me up and said we're doing it for this guy, and it was a beautiful feeling, you know.

The country was together, and that's a good feeling.

-I think what kept us going was that on every building in New York and every house, every building, here was the American flag.

You know, you hate to say a tragedy like this brought us together.

We all became one against an enemy.

-After 9/11 everybody was an American.

There was no differences, none whatsoever.

Everybody was an American.

I remember standing on the corner and the next thing I know, I'm in a bear hug and somebody's picking me up.

I turned around and it's this big black fella.

He was a construction worker.

He was there volunteering to clean up the stuff.

He was from I think South Carolina or something, you know, and he's going God bless you and all this other stuff.

And I'm like are you kidding?

You know, God bless you, you know.

So everybody was one, and I can't believe here we are 20 years later, and basically Americans are at each other's throats over nonsense.

-I sensed a lot of fear of the unknown from people, and even people who may normally not think much of us, for whatever it's worth, were looking to us for comfort and help and aid, and they took a certain-- I think they took a certain comfort in knowing that we were around.

I can recall driving around in a police vehicle, and people standing on street corners clapping for you, cheering for you.

While the attacks were 20 years ago, the impact lingers for many police officers.

Every one of us knows of several who have gotten ill and passed away from the effects afterwards, sometimes years later, and a lot of these times it was from these malignancies that you seldom hear of.

I know of one personally who was a good friend, one of my closer friends.

He lived near the Manhattan Bridge in Chinatown.

He came down with a rather rare condition in this country called bile duct cancer, and he died a painful, horrible death in 2011, and his exposure was similar to my exposure.

Now, why did he get sick and I didn't?

I don't know.

-When I come here and we go to the stone, it's like a sacred monument to us.

The cross was made out of metal that was from the World Trade Center, and you come here and it's very like hallowed ground.

And you stand there, and you reflect on all the things that happened on that day.

-We lost over 3,000 people that day.

Those people have to stay in your mind forever.

We can't just say well, it happened.

That's it, case closed.

No.

As far as we're concerned at 1013, it happened yesterday.

We're not going to forget, and we're going to remind everybody of that day, September 11, 2001.

-Las Vegas suffered its own tragedy four years ago on October 1, 2017, but two trees bring the promise of hope and healing.

The Nevada Week team was there when one of the trees was planted.

The small tree arrived at Las Vegas Fire and Rescue station 5 in the back of a white city work truck, but its journey started 20 years earlier at Ground Zero in New York City.

(Brad Daseler) When the World Trade Centers were attacked, a pear tree survived underneath the rubble for roughly a month, and the New York City Parks rehabilitated it and actually it's planted at the 9/11 memorial, and this is a seedling of that tree.

The Survivor Tree, as it is known, is one of two given to Las Vegas by the 9/11 Foundation after the One October mass shooting.

Maggie Allred helped bring the trees to the city.

Her brother-in-law takes care of the seedlings through his tree business in Connecticut.

(Maggie Allred) We have visited over the years and sadly, we've heard of all the places where they've sent it, to Paris, San Bernardino, Florida, all around the country, and I was saddened when I had to call him to say we need a seedling in Las Vegas.

While the City gratefully accepted the trees two years ago, Southern Nevada's climate presented a challenge.

Allred credited the City's urban foresters with getting the seedlings to this point.

It did arrive as kind of a stick, and now it's just beautiful.

I'm so happy it's here at station five.

I'm just happy to see it in the ground.

Brad Daseler is one of the urban foresters that took care of the tree.

He said there are species of pear trees like this one already thriving in Southern Nevada, although this tree will get special treatment.

We plant a lot of trees, but this one actually has special significance to us and the community, so yes, it's a little bit more nerve-wracking caring for a tree.

Eventually, the tree will be about 30 feet tall, and a plaque will be placed out front explaining its significance.

The City's urban foresters will monitor it to make sure it flourishes.

We're going to keep a close eye on it and take special care of it.

I think it is a symbol of hope.

It's something that survived a terrible tragedy and now it's here, you know, standing proud and beautiful.

-I hope people hear about it and are able to come here because the idea of the Survivor Tree is for people to share that healing of the tragedies that we've gone through.

So I hope people are able to come out here and visit it.

-The anniversary of tragic events, even if they're not ones that a person is involved in, can trigger emotions ranging from panic to anxiousness.

Las Vegas of course was home to the worst mass shooting in modern American history on October 1, 2017.

Well, joining us to talk about the potential impact of traumatic events and how you can help someone, including yourself, who might be struggling, is Dan Ficalora from Bridge Counseling.

Dan, thank you so much for being here.

We really appreciate it.

-Glad to be here.

Thanks so much.

-I mean, it's such an important conversation, and I want to start with the previous package.

We talked to New York police officers.

Let's talk about New Yorkers in general.

A lot of New Yorkers have moved here.

Big milestones like this, like a 20th anniversary, are they any more triggering than any anniversary related to 9/11 that we've had before this?

(Dan Ficalora) The date 9/11 in itself has just become a trigger, right?

It's so identified with that date on the calendar.

As we see it coming and as September rolls around and we get into that week, there's many people across the country, especially those that have a connection to New York though, that will feel triggered and brought back to that moment in time.

-How about those that maybe weren't there in New York?

I mean, we have a lot of Las Vegans here that were from other parts of the world.

They experienced it on television like so many of us did.

Is it still just as potentially traumatic for them?

-Absolutely.

There's primary trauma, which is when you are there, you're part of the traumatic event, you're part of the crisis and emergency situation.

But then there's something called secondary trauma or vicarious trauma, where many of us, many Americans, many people around the world experienced that from viewing the media depictions.

We were all glued to our TV screens during that day and the subsequent weeks, everything that happened with the 9/11 tragedy, that many of us experienced negative emotions, and those emotions can be dug up when this date comes back on the calendar.

-And then on top of that, you mentioned news, visuals that we keep seeing.

Let's not forget that a lot of Las Vegans of course were here on October 1 when the Route 91 tragedy happened.

How much more susceptible are those Las Vegans?

-Sure.

Another date on the calendar, right?

So these two tragedies are labeled by their date which other mass shootings or traumatic events don't necessarily have a date associated with them.

But October 1, September 11, when fall rolls around, people see those dates coming, and they can trigger themselves just knowing that fall is here, I'm going to go through what happened on 9/11, then I'm going to go through what happened October 1.

It could be a really tough time for those people that have been impacted.

-Other personal trauma, let's not forget about this too, and I'm wondering if you have suffered other personal trauma whether it be maybe domestic violence or sexual assault or loss of a loved one that provided a lot of trauma too, could this be triggering just this anniversary here, too?

-Sure.

Trauma is trauma, so if you are in an environment or there are environmental triggers around you that are beginning to bring out those negative emotions or impacting your mood and you're already susceptible to the symptoms of trauma from a previous experience, a personal experience, any environmental trigger can send you down that pathway towards those negative behaviors.

-If we're not acknowledging this or we're not checking it, so to speak, what are the outcomes down the road?

What are the biggest concerns?

-The biggest concerns of course is that your symptoms get out of your control in a way that you can't cope using your normal skills that you would use in your everyday life.

We normally see things like intrusion where things in your environment are reminding you of that negative event, that trauma, and you're having times throughout your day, throughout your week, certain dates on the calendar where you're reminded in unpleasant ways.

Some ways it can be just, you know, a thought of oh, that bad thing happened to me.

On the extreme end, it can be a flashback where you feel like you're back in that trauma again and experiencing it all over again for the first time.

We can have negative impacts on our mood.

Most common is depression where we just feel down, especially when that time of the year rolls around.

Around the anniversary of a trauma, we can begin to feel those negative moods and cognitions come into our mind and just put us out of sorts.

On the extreme end of that, we can be irritable or aggressive, take it out on our family members, our loved ones.

We can also have avoidance behaviors.

You know, most naturally we're going to avoid the things that remind us of that trauma, but on the extreme end, we can avoid everything, isolate ourselves, not want to interact with anybody and just kind of lock ourselves up in our room because we don't really want to deal with the world right now.

The ultimate form of avoidance can be going to substances, right, going to drugs and alcohol and you're avoiding life in general and going down into this substance which takes away some of the negativity that we're feeling and kind of numbs you out so you don't have to deal with what you're experiencing.

-So some personal challenges, but if we look at this collectively then, we could have things like substance abuse, trends of substance abuse, trends of domestic violence, potentially seeing rises after these anniversaries if I'm hearing you correctly.

Let's talk about the symptoms and the signs.

This is very important, as you already mentioned.

What are some symptoms or some signs we should be really aware of during an anniversary like 9/11?

-Watch your family members, watch those people that you know, maybe have been impacted or maybe have a trauma history where they might be a little bit more prone to significant dates and traumatic events, and watch for a change in behavior, right?

Do you notice that they're more irritable?

Do you notice that they're isolating more or engaging in some behaviors that are more risky or more self-destructive than normal?

Those are times to open up a conversation.

-Commemorating an event like this with mass media of course, and it doesn't matter what you look at right now, 9/11 is at the forefront of our media.

We all remember.

How much should you be commemorating something like this?

I mean, it seems like it could be a slippery slope.

-Absolutely.

I mean, results may vary.

There are some people that are not very impacted by the date and just want to remember it and even celebrate the courageousness that we saw during these traumatic events.

There are those that are more triggered or more close to the subject matter that can't see any kind of imagery around it without being triggered.

I just say you should know yourself and be kind of cognizant of your media diet.

If you know that, you know, spending all day watching images, I know some cable news channels repeat the news feed from that day just like it was happening all over again.

If you know that's going to be too much for you, avoid it.

If you feel like this is something that's important to you, that you need to remember and need to go through this process again so that you can get in touch with the state of mind that you're in at that date, then do that with moderation.

There are other ways to commemorate.

Do some act of service within the community, get connected to organizations in town that are doing remembrance celebrations where there's support and others around.

Those tend to be more beneficial than isolating by yourself and stuck to a screen.

-Great advice.

Let's talk about some of the other factors.

You already mentioned media diet being one of those.

What are some of the other big factors we should be really careful of?

-Basically knowing yourself.

You know what fuels you and what makes your lifestyle healthy, right?

So don't get away from those things just because an anniversary date is coming up, right?

So if you know a significant date on the calendar is coming, this is a trauma, it's something that I'm going to be having a rough time, now is the time to engage those lifestyle skills, those coping skills that make you feel healthy whether it's an exercise routine, it's getting together with friends, it's finding involvement in the community or it's reaching out to social or professional supports that you might need to get you through that tough time.

-This brings up stigma, right?

I mean, everything you're listing right there is of course you have awareness and then awareness to know that you need help, and this is something we talk about whenever we talk about mental health or mental illness on this show.

Stigma comes up as a major barrier, limiting people's ability sometimes to be able to know and then seek that help related to something like this that has so much trauma attached to it.

Is stigma a major challenge?

-Absolutely.

Anytime we're talking about mental health, there's a stigma attached to that.

Just raising your hand and saying I'm not okay puts a target on you in some people's minds that there's a weakness involved with it or that I'm not a healthy person because I need someone else to help me through this time.

If we could remove that stigma and just open up the conversation for everybody within our community, within our country, that talking about your mental health just like we talk about our physical health, we would be a much healthier society.

-Let's transition to suggestions.

You've already given some really great ones.

Let's kind of stay on the stigma topic a little bit, and let's talk about if you have a loved one that is suffering or showing some of the signs, what are the best things you can do to help them?

-The number-one best thing you can do is just be open to the conversation, pointing out that hey, I'm noticing there's something different with you.

You seem down.

I haven't seen you as much as I used to.

What's going on?

Let's talk.

Just creating that safe space for an individual that's dealing with a trauma is the number-one thing that you can do just to make them feel safe.

When we're talking about trauma, safety is the number-one thing.

We experienced trauma because we were fearful, fearful for our life, fearful for the lives of a loved one.

If we can eliminate that fear by creating a safe space within the home environment, within your work environment, that will be the number-one beneficial thing to your loved ones.

-Home environment and work environment make a lot of sense.

Of course professional help is something maybe that a lot of people would maybe suggest right off the bat.

I mean, could home and work support be strong enough to where you don't necessarily need professional care all the time if you're experiencing some of these symptoms?

-I always think anyone's going to benefit from therapy.

I'm a therapist.

Anyone who can come in and spend an hour of your week focused on yourself, you're going to improve.

You're going to see benefits in your life.

But some people are not into it.

Some people don't think it's beneficial to them.

If you have really good support environments at home, you may not need it.

But when those symptoms get beyond your control, beyond what your support system can handle in helping and supporting you, that's when professional supports need to be brought in, and I really recommend focusing with a licensed therapist that's trauma informed, that has the right training to do the trauma treatment that's needed.

-Proactive measures here.

Of course we're almost upon 9/11, but we do have 10/1 coming up as well.

Are there proactive measures, knowing maybe that there might be some things that are triggering, or maybe you're not really sure if you are going to be triggered.

What can you do now to help you on that date?

-Like I mentioned before we all know for ourselves what makes us feel good, what helps us live a healthy and satisfying lifestyle.

So we can engage in those behaviors or double down on those behaviors when we know that there's a difficult time coming.

That's that preemptive, that little inoculation that you can give yourself towards that stress that is coming.

Engaging with setting something up, putting something else on the calendar that you're looking forward to in addition to the anniversary date that's coming up.

Finding a way to celebrate that is not triggering for you but that can act as remembrance or even be strengthening or heartening for you as an individual, and showing that, you know, I'm making something good out of this bad experience can also be beneficial.

-I want to talk about long-term here.

After anniversaries have come and gone, are there signs that this might be having a much bigger impact on your life?

-Sure.

If you haven't taken the time earlier in the process, you know, 9/11 happened 20 years ago.

If you haven't taken the time in the previous couple decades to deal with any trauma that is lingering from that event, the effects can compound and we're going to see those symptoms get worse and worse over time.

The anniversaries will become more intense, and you'll see longer lingering effects throughout the year.

That's really a sign that some professional help is needed and that you need to reach out and find some ways that you can get additional support that will help you in your recovery journey.

-Dan, thank you very much.

We really appreciate all the insight that you provided us.

Well, thank you as always for joining us this week on Nevada Week.

For any of the resources that we have discussed on this show, please visit our website at vegaspbs.org/nevadaweek.

You can always find us on social media at @nevadaweek.

Thanks again, and we'll see you next week.

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