In the days immediately after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, J. Chester Johnson volunteered at St. Paul's Chapel, the historic church in the shadow of the World Trade Center that became a respite center for workers digging for bodies in the rubble of the twin towers. He helped to feed and tend to the firefighters, police officers and others.
Today, Johnson, a poet and a retired consultant, is working to build a memorial to the victims of a race riot near his hometown in Arkansas — an endeavor he says he took on after seeing what could happen when a group of people come together to grieve.
Dr. Cindy Otto, a veterinarian at the University of Pennsylvania, arrived in Lower Manhattan as a member of a FEMA search and rescue task force, providing medical care for the dogs on what the workers called "the pile." Otto was inspired to start the Penn Vet Working Dog Center, which is focused on developing top-rate rescue dogs.
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Fifteen years after the attacks, they and psychologists, chaplains, family members and others are continuing to honor the spirit that prevailed after the attacks, when thousands reached out to friends and strangers to help New York City recover. They say their work was life-changing, influencing them in ways that they had not anticipated.
"While we came to help, actually our being volunteers, it began to heal us," Johnson said.
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At St. Paul's Chapel, Johnson was among cooks and chiropractors, musicians and massage therapists working under a banner that read: "To New York City and All the Rescuers: Keep Your Spirits Up…Oklahoma Loves You!!" Podiatrists treated the workers' feet where George Washington prayed on the day he was inaugurated president — an appropriate tribute, they decided, because so many of Washington's troops fought without boots at Valley Forge.
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"There was a such an outpouring of love, care and generosity reflected during that time," said Johnson, whose poem about St. Paul's was reproduced on a memento card from the chapel.
Later, after he learned of the massacre of African-Americans during the Elaine Race Riot of 1919 — and that one of his grandfathers had participated — he became determined to create a memorial to the killings in Phillips County, Arkansas.
"It created a possibility in me to do things that I had not envisioned for myself," he said.
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On Sunday, the names of first responders, recovery workers and volunteers who have since died will be called out in St. Paul's churchyard, a ceremony organized by another of the volunteers, Barbara Horn. She returned to New York City from graduate school in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, after the attacks.
"It was like a homing device went off," she said. "I had to get home."
Horn found her way to St. Paul's and went on to befriend some of the relatives — and become a liaison to one family in Japan — and to help create the Sept. 11 walking tours conducted by survivors, rescue and recover workers and family members.
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"That's something that changed my life," she said.
Otto monitored the health of the search and rescue dogs — the last one, Bretagne, died in June at the age of 16 — and four years ago opened the center at the University of Pennsylvania. Most of the rescue dogs fared well afterward, she said, little affected by the lung problems many of the workers have had, for example. At the center, researchers train search dogs and investigate what makes them successful.
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Amy Attas, another of the veterinarians who volunteered near ground zero, said that the handlers would open up as their dogs were treated for cuts, burns and dehydration, prompting the vets to ask psychologists to sit with them.
"A lot of the handlers told us that their dogs were really depressed, because they were search and rescue dogs and they weren't finding anybody," said Attas, a house call veterinarian in New York City.
Donna Bassin, a psychologist and an artist, accompanied the first family members to travel to ground zero, visiting the remnants of the twin towers by boat down the Hudson River. She quickly realized that she was unprepared for the enormity of the tragedy and six months later was consulting with military veterans about handling such overwhelming traumatic grief.
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"I think all of us were in a very disassociated state," she said. "There was a gunner boat with us, that came down alongside of us. I remember staring at it and trying to get into my head that this was a war situation."
She has now made two documentaries about veterans back from the wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq: "Leave No Soldier" and "The Mourning After." She wanted to learn from them, particularly the way veterans formed a community to take care of each other, she said.
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More than 1,000 chaplains served at ground zero, said Peter Gudaitis, the executive vice president of the New York Disaster Interfaith Services and the president of the National Disaster Interfaiths Network. Some were ordained, credentialed disaster chaplains — meeting standards set by the national Red Cross — but others were simply volunteers who showed up without particular training.
"A lot of it was a lot of good will and unconditional love and a good mix of crazy -- and self-serving, self-promoting, proselytizing, problematic people," he said.
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Some pushed themselves too hard, later leaving the ministry, developing post traumatic stress disorder or problems with substance abuse, he said. Marriages broke up.
In New York City now, a disaster chaplain always partners with a mental health professional. Special training is required. Proselytizing is forbidden. The goal is to help rescue workers and others to draw on their own emotional and spiritual resilience, and to make sure the chaplains take care of themselves, he said.
"The body retrieval and relief process, recovery process went on for 10 months," he said. "So it was in many ways a laboratory for how we do trauma work over a prolonged period of time."
The Islamic Circle of North America was among the groups participating in the interfaith organization, working with Muslims who were falling through the cracks or other survivors who were not being served. Muslims tried to counter Islamophobia with civic engagement, said Adem Carroll, the group's director for Sept. 11 programs. The Islamic Circle of North America went on to create separate programs for U.S. disasters such as Hurricane Katrina and Sandy, and younger Muslims in particular are taking part, he said.
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"They have a sense, many of them, of their being part of a larger society with responsibilities whether it's to confront climate change or to deal with racial justice issues, whatever they're aware of and concerned about," Carroll said.
The Rev. Willard Ashley and Rabbi Stephen Roberts both deployed chaplains after the attacks and later they edited a book together — "Disaster Spiritual Care: Practical Clergy Responses to Community, Regional and National Tragedy" — when they realized there was not one available.
Ashley, the dean of the New Brunswick Theological Seminary in New Jersey, had worked to keep clergy healthy in the months after the attacks.
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"The premise was if you're healed, you can help your congregation heal," he said.
Roberts, the president of Chaplain Distance Learning, said he was motivated by the sound in the emergency room at New York Presbyterian Hospital after the World Trade Center collapsed. It was silent.
"There's nothing worse than thinking you're going to be able to save lives and in the emergency room, there was no one to save," he said.
Glenn J. Winuk was a lawyer at Holland & Knight and a volunteer firefighter on Long Island, who on Sept. 11 raced from his office a block and a half away to help evacuate the south tower. He died when it collapsed.
"I knew my brother," his brother, Jay Winuk, said this week, standing at the World Trade Center's memorial pools. "I knew where his office was. And I knew there was no way he wasn't coming over here."
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With no body to mourn -- Glenn Winuk's remains were not found until the following year -- his family placed some of his possessions in a pine box and at first buried those, including a small fire truck. And in his memory, Jay Winuk encourages people to volunteer in some way on the anniversary.
Winuk and a friend, David Paine, co-founded a nonprofit organization that has come to be known as 9/11 Day or more formally, the September 11th National Day of Service and Remembrance. Last year, more than 28 million people commemorated the day with charitable work or good deeds, Winuk said.
"There is no other larger annual day of charitable engagement," said Winuk, who owns a public relations firm in Carmel, New York.
The group urges people to choose their own projects, whether writing letters to U.S. troops, giving blood or cleaning a beach. Its success comes from its flexibility, Winuk said, and over the years, the organization has worked with the American Red Cross, the National Football League and corporations such as American Express.
On Sunday, 2,000 volunteers from a coalition it put together called Tomorrow Together will pack a half a million meals for those who are hungry.
"Even 15 years later, people want to do something to mark the day," he said.
A odd temperature record for Philadelphia was apparently set Friday when temperatures remained above 80 degrees from midnight to midnight.
Friday, Sept. 9, 2016, became the first September day on record where the temperature stayed above 80 degrees for the entire 24-hour period. Meteorologists and weather nerds first became aware of the possibility for the weather oddity early Friday evening.
At 5 p.m., the National Weather Service in Mount Holly had predicted a steady fall in the temperature between then and midnight. And on cue, the temperature did fall, but at midnight, it was still 82 degrees, the NWS said in its three-day, hour-by-hour history.
At 2:54 a.m. Saturday morning, the temperature finally dipped below 80 - to 79 degrees, the NWS chart shows.
Actually, according to the NWS, the temperature in Philadelphia remained above 80 degrees for 41 straight hours, from 8:54 a.m. Thursday through 1:54 a.m. Saturday.
One of Pennsylvania's notable weathermen, Steve Seman of Penn State's Department of Meteorology and Atmospheric Science even came up with a hashtag. On Friday evening, he and others said a thunderstorm rolling through the city seemed like the only variable standing in the way of all 80s over the next seven hours.
And as the Washington Post points out, nearby cities similarly felt the heat.
Friday was also the hottest Sept. 9 on record, peaking at 96 degrees in the afternoon.
A 26-year-old New Jersey woman who mysteriously disappeared after a routine trip to her local coffee shop has been located, police announced Saturday.
After a 10-day investigation, Tammy Kim was located by a hunter in a heavily wooded area in Sussex County, The Franklin Police Department said. She was not assaulted, however detectives are still determining what happened to her.
“We are extremely happy and relieved to announce that Tammy was found alive this morning by a hunter, thanks to the hunting season that began today,” her family said in a statement. “We are grateful for the law enforcement, family, friends, and volunteers who helped search for our daughter over the past ten days.”
Tammy Kim was last seen near the Starbucks on Highway 23 in Franklin Borough at about 10 a.m. Thursday, Sept. 1, according to police.
The Starbucks cafe was a favorite hangout for Kim, and she often worked on her computer there. Kim, who does not drive, was supposed to be picked up by her parents at around noon last Thursday, her mother told NBC 4 New York.
Her laptop was found abandoned near the Sussex Bank corporate offices -- a mostly empty office building -- on Munsonhurst Road, police said. On the second floor of the building, in a room that's under renovation, police tracked her phone about 12 hours after she disappeared.
Because Kim does not drive, police thought she either suffered from some sort of medical episode and wandered into the woods in a rural area nearby, or she got into a car with someone.
Kim was taken to Morristown Medical Center where she is being treated by medical personnel, police said.
Eric Feltyberger dedicated most of his life to the Pioneer Fire Co. in Jenkintown as a volunteer firefighter and spent his downtime listening to the Grateful Dead.
When it came to both of those dwindling, close-knit communities, Feltyberger, 43, was still relatively a kid.
His sudden death Wednesday has left his lifelong friends and firefighting colleagues in and around Jenkintown reeling from the loss of a guy who "was a part of everything" in the small Montgomery County borough.
Feltyberger, who lived a couple blocks from the firehouse on Greenwood Avenue, became a volunteer at 14. For the last decade, he was a lieutenant, according to Assistant Chief Joe Connolly.
"He didn't volunteer for the recognition. He did it because it needed to be done, which is a unique feature for a person in today's society," Connolly said Saturday morning as he and Chief Mike Brogan prepared for Feltyberger's funeral next week.
Brogan called him "a one of a kind guy."
Feltyberger died Wednesday evening just a block from the firehouse when he fell accidentally from the third-floor balcony of a friend's apartment on Greenwood Avenue, according to Jenkintown police Chief Albert DeValentino.
He and the friend were making dinner when Feltyberger went out for a smoke and sat on a railing, DeValentino said. He somehow lost his balance and fell, the chief said.
"It's tragic," DeValentino said. "He was a really nice guy, a hardworking kid."
Mayor Ed Foley said he didn't know Feltyberger well, but knew him as a long-serving servant to the community.
"Volunteer firefighting is a lot of times a thankless job. But in doing it, he was well-known to the company and to the borough," Foley said. "This is a tragedy that wasn't meant to be."
Connolly said Feltyberger's mother and sisters visited the firehouse Friday evening and told of their wishes that in lieu of flowers, well-wishers donate to the fire company. But Connolly said Feltyberger would have also wanted donations to go to The Burn Foundation.
"That's the type of guy he was. Always giving, giving, giving," Brogan said.
Visiting hours will be 7 to 9 p.m. Thursday and 9 to 9:45 a.m. Friday at McGoldrick Funeral Home, 507 West Ave., Jenkintown. A funeral procession with full firefighter's honor guard will go from the funeral home to Grace Presbyterian Church, 444 York Rd., Jenkintown. Burial will be in Hillside Cemetery in Roslyn.
A handful of high school students and spectators were overcome by heat at a football game in Wilmington, Delaware Saturday, officials said.
Delaware Military Academy took on Wilmington Charter at Baynard Stadium around 1 p.m. when people started falling ill.
The temperature reached 91 degrees in the city with the heat index soaring to 101 degrees, according to the NBC10 First Alert Weather Team.
Firefighters and paramedics were called in to treat those who were overcome by the hot weather.
A cheerleading coach told NBC10 that a few of her cheerleaders were among the heat exhausted. She called the incident "very scary" and said adults were working hard to keep students hydrated.
Olympic track medalist Nia Ali was celebrated by friends, family and her neighbors in a special post-Rio block party in Philadelphia's Germantown neighborhood Saturday.
Dozens of fans and well-wishers took over the 6300 block of Sherman Street to celebrate Ali's silver medal win in the 100 meter hurdles last month.
City and state politicians stopped by to bestow commendations on the 27-year-old who scored the 10th fastest time in U.S. history for the event.
Ali used to race down the streets of Germantown before heading out west to attend college at the University of Southern California.
"A dream of mine has always been to not just make the Olympics, but to be in a position where I could use my platform for something greater than me, something better than me and to have so many kids out here today...I'm happy to have been able to share this with you," Ali told the crowd.
Members of a South Jersey high school football team knelt during a rendition of the national anthem before a game Saturday to draw attention to social injustices and economic disparities.
Players and coaches from the Woodrow Wilson Tigers carried out the silent demonstration as a recorded version of "The Star-Spangled Banner" played at the team's field in Camden before a match-up against Highland High.
Tigers coach Preston Brown initially planned to take a knee alone and informed his team about the decision Friday. When the anthem played over the PA system Saturday morning, most of his team joined in the protest.
“I am well aware of the third verse of the national anthem which is not usually sung, and I know that the words of the song were not originally meant to include people like me," he told NBC10 Saturday night.
The anthem's third stanza, which is hardly ever performed, reads in part "No refuge could save the hireling and slave / From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave."
That specific section has been cited as a symbol of racial oppression and has been central to high-profile protests by San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick and other sports stars. The protests have sparked a national debate about freedom of expression and the true meaning of the lyrics and added to the continued debate over racial inequality in America.
Brown told NJ.com, which first reported the story and also recorded video of the demonstration, that he stood for the anthem as a "formality" all his life. He went on to say that he loves America and the military.
Woodrow Wilson's student population is almost exclusively non-white with Hispanics and black students being the most represented respectively, a state census shows.
Two students chose not to kneel, Brown said, adding each student had the right to "exercise what they thought was right."
The Camden City School District agreed with Brown's sentiment. In a statement, spokesman Brendan Lowe said while the district supports standing for the flag, they "strongly respect" students exercising their First Amendment rights.
"Whether our students choose to stand, kneel, or otherwise, we're proud of their engagement with what is more broadly a very important social justice issue."
Memorials and volunteer events throughout our area are marking the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks, and honoring the nearly 3,000 people who died that day.
Here are some local events memorializing 9/11:
A rubbish fire near a steel yard in Camden burned Sunday afternoon, sending billowing black smoke that could be seen for miles into the air.
The fire broke out along the 1400 block of Front Street near 2nd Street, fire officials said.
Officials earlier said the fire started at Camden Yards Steel Company, which operates a plant on the 2500 block of Broadway.
A photograph taken at a pier in South Philadelphia shows the cloud of black smoke from the fire. What started the fire is unclear, but it appeared to have been placed under control after 3 p.m. Sunday.
