Jared Gans

It's been a long time since I've written such a personal piece, but I decided to write about my experience on 9/11, living across the street from the Twin Towers as they collapsed 25 years ago. They're some of my first memories from my childhood, and they've shaped me into who I am today. Full piece here, but I've included some below: thehill.com/homenews/6083235… Twenty-five years have passed since the windows of my family’s apartment burst in and upended the life I knew in Battery Park City. My twin brother, Jacob, and I were just shy of 4 years old — we had already sent out invitations to our birthday party at Chelsea Piers — and were watching “Franklin” on TV in the living room when we heard a loud boom. On the other side of the apartment, my mom was jolted awake by what she said felt like an earthquake. She ran to her window, which faced the World Trade Center’s south tower — the second to be hit but the first to fall — and saw a “raging fire.” “It was like ‘The Towering Inferno,’” my mom told me recently, when I asked her about her recollections of that day. “It’s not like you saw fire inside. You saw the flame coming out.” Our housekeeper was panicking, holding my 2-year-old sister, Rachel, in her diaper. My mom called the fire department and was told to stay put. She called my dad, who was at work in midtown already, and he said to listen to the fire department. My mom hopped in the shower and came out to find her three kids on the treadmill in her bedroom, peering out the window to count the emergency vehicles filing in below. Both towers had been hit, but neither had yet fallen. My memories from that day — some of the earliest I have — are spotty. I remember counting 14 firetrucks below; I remember looking up in that moment to see an avalanche of debris heading toward us as the south tower began to fall; and I remember my mom telling us to follow her to the kitchen as the windows crashed in and darkness flooded the apartment. But an almost-4-year-old’s memories are different from an adult’s — a truth I have come to understand as both a blessing and a curse. I remember being chased by monsters — what I soon understood to be dust and debris from the collapsing tower — when we followed my mom to the kitchen. I remember my mom telling Jacob and me to stay there, as she frantically ran back to the bedroom to get Rachel — who, my mom later told me, she found clutching the bed, covered in glass. And I remember Jacob turning around to follow my mom, leaving me alone in the kitchen.

I've joined @Jared_Gans and the team at Morning Report to help write The Hill's flagship AM newsletter. Today, we talked to GOP strategists, who told us why Trump's "I love the inflation" comment will be a "doozy" for Republicans ahead of the midterms. thehill.com/newsletters/morn…