Katherine Repasky & Josh Imhof | assistant editor & news editor

Duquesne alumnus Robert Boyd woke up on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, like he did any other day in college.

The night before, the sophomore had been interviewing students for an article in The Duke and even met his future girlfriend while he was doing it.

But that morning turned out to be anything but normal.

“As soon as I turned the TV on, one of the planes had already hit. That was the first thing I saw,” Boyd said.

Minutes earlier, a Boeing 767 had crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center and images of smoke pluming out of the side of the building were being broadcast nationwide. At first, Boyd thought it was just an accident.

Just as he was about to turn the TV off, the second plane hit.

“I was frozen because at that point everyone knew we were under attack,” Boyd said.

In the hours that followed, both World Trade Center towers completely collapsed and two more planes were hijacked.

One crashed into the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and the other into a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, an hour-and-a-half southeast of Pittsburgh, after passengers on board fought back against the hijackers.

In total, 2,977 people died that day, according to the 9/11 Memorial and Museum in New York City. In the years since, tens of thousands of first responders and victims have been diagnosed with cancers and other health issues caused by the attacks.

While there were no attacks in Pittsburgh that day, students at Duquesne recalled a sense of confusion and uncertainty.

“They evacuated all the dorms because there were still planes that were out there missing and they were afraid that one of them could hit [Duquesne Towers] or could hit a skyscraper in Pittsburgh,” said Duquesne alumnus Vince Comunale.

“You just didn’t know what was happening.”

Comunale, a senior at the time, was a commuter student at Duquesne and said the second plane hit as he was driving to school that morning. When he got to campus, he joined the masses of students on A-Walk who had all been told to stay out of their buildings.

As the students gathered, Ben Garletts, who was a graduate student at Duquesne in 2001, remembered the Rev. Sean Hogan walking up and down A-Walk holding a bullhorn and speaking to students.

“I don’t know what he was saying, but Father Hogan was the guy who was there for students,” Garletts said. “I saw him out there, and it was really kind of calming. I knew the world was out of control, but he was trying to be peace.”

Dining services met students on A-Walk and served them lunch as people wheeled TVs outside to turn on the news.

Still, not everyone felt safe on campus. For Mandy Kandell, a junior at the time, the evacuations did the opposite.

“We’re all just a human target now,” Kandell said, as she recalled her immediate reaction while standing outside with her peers.

Other students remained in a state of alert throughout the rest of the day, Garletts said.

“Everyone was on their toes looking for, I guess, ‘evildoers,’” he said.

Once more people began to find out about the attacks, Boyd and Comunale said droves of people began evacuating the city.

“It was impossible to leave campus because it was so gridlocked with traffic,” Comunale said.

Boyd, who served as features editor for The Duke at the time, ran toward the city to interview people as they evacuated.

“I started running into business people, adults with jobs,” he said. “They’re all storming out of their buildings, and I’m hearing through word of mouth that ‘Hey, we’re being told to leave Downtown. Get out of Downtown.’”

Boyd and some of his friends ended up glued to a TV screen and surrounded by other Pittsburghers in a Downtown bar to watch the rest of the day’s events unfold. While he was there, he said misinformation quickly spread.

“Rumors were circulating. People in the bar like, ‘Oh, I heard a plane hit the Sears Tower in Chicago,’” Boyd said. “There was still a lot of speculation. And the national reporters who were reporting on it, CNN and all those guys, they had no idea.”

The fallout

On the Sunday following the attacks, a vigil was held on the steps of what is now known as the Gormley Student Union. Nearly 1,000 people attended the vigil, according to Kandell’s reporting for The Duke. The audience sang “We Will Overcome” and “God Bless America” before leaving candles on the steps of the union.

After it was over, students returned to their dorms, many of which had cutouts of American flags in the windows.

Students and staff worked to tackle the growing anti-Muslim sentiment throughout the country.

“There was a lot of anger against people from the Middle East, and of the Muslim faith,” Garletts said. “And it was, it was awful.”

In the days and weeks following the attacks, racism and violence against Muslim people increased in the United States.

The FBI reported 481 hate crimes against Muslims in 2001 compared to 28 in 2000, according to the PEW Research Center.

Garletts, who was editor-in-chief of The Duke, and the rest of the staff recognized the importance of speaking out against this, so they published a staff editorial titled “Don’t Let Hate Destroy Our Unity” in their Sept. 20, 2001 issue.

The piece condemns the Islamophobia and racism of the time, and encourages Americans to be better — something Garletts said was reflected by his professors.

“I really appreciate the culture of ecumenicalism and openness that was had at the time.” Garletts said. “The messaging was one of peace and of hope, and of staying vigilant but not losing our hope to fear.”

Katherine Repasky can be reached at repaskyk@duq.edu

Josh Imhof can be reached at imhofj@duq.edu