New Yorker Now Living In El Paso Remembers 9/11

New Yorker Mikey Annabi thinks about home every September 11th.

“Every time it comes up I just keep coming back to that day, just like flashbacks keep feeding into my mind,” he said.

Annabi moved to the Sun City back in 2006, five years after the terrorist attacks that killed more than 2,700 people at the World Trade Center.

He said he lived just outside New York City in Wicnhester, about 30 minutes away from ground zero, on the day of the attacks.

“You could see the smoke and everything from the sky, it was like ‘Woah is this really happening?’ You’re looking outside and you’re looking at the TV and you can just see it happening,” he said. “It’s not easy to forget something like that”

It’s a tragic day that’s hard to forget– even for El Pasoans who were far from the attacks like firefighter Rick Marin.

“I remember I was going to go on duty that day and I heard about it on the radio and I couldn’t believe it. Being a firefighter myself it was very sad knowing firefighters were dead up in that building,” said Marin.

Annabi said curious customers will often ask him what September 11th was like firsthand. He said the memories from that day won’t soon fade, but he’d rather focus on honoring the fallen. “Innocent people lost their lives that day for no reason. We should remember everyone who was lost on that day,” he said.

More than 200 people outside New York City also died in 2001 in terrorist attacks at the Pentagon and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.