Life After Sept. 11: Our Region's Stories

In the days leading up to Sept. 11, Dunwoody Patch will be posting stories from around the region and locally about how the tragedy changed the way people live. If you have a story you'd like to share, please email me at peter.cox@patch.com.

MIDTOWN – Midtown resident Rafiq Kemp remembers well the tragic events of Sept. 11, 2001. He could still feel the sting of a fresh tattoo. 

"I was living a wild lifestyle," said Kemp, who was 17 and living in St. Paul, Minn., at the time of the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City, the Pentagon and over Pennsylvania. 

"I had just got my mom's tattoo on my arm," the 27-year-old explained Friday outside , a Muslim temple on 14th Street in Midtown. Kemp now lives in the Home Park neighborhood near Georgia Tech.

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SANDY SPRINGS – Ten years ago, John Vann was a Fulton County Police officer working in Sandy Springs, and had set aside dreams of joining the military.

They were reborn after the Sept. 11 attacks.

“Within two weeks of Sept. 11, I went to the recruiter’s officer,” Vann recalled. “I don’t know that I would have even looked at the military had that not happened.”

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DECATUR – Decatur firefighter Craig DuBose said the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, made him realize life can end in a flash. He was driving a forklift at a warehouse in Fairburn that morning when somebody told him he needed to come watch the television. He and all the other workers crowded into a break room to join the rest of the world in witnessing the destruction of the World Trade Center. "We were all like, 'Is this really happening?'" DuBose said. "It was a shocking experience."

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SMYRNA – Like many from his generation, Mike Roberson remembers Sept. 11, 2001, as the day he grew up. Then 22, Roberson was stationed on the U.S.S. Detroit, a fast combat support ship whose homeport was the Earle Naval Weapons Station in New Jersey, about 60 miles south of Manhattan.

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BUCKHEAD – Firefighter Mike Palmeri’s life changed forever when he saw the  terrorists’ planes hit the World Trade Center Towers on Sept. 11, 2001. Palmeri was cleaning up Buckhead’s  when he saw the attacks on the television. As the 10th anniversary of the attacks approached, Palmeri decided to make a special memorial to those who lost their lives by making a 1,035-mile, 16-day bike trip from Atlanta to New York City.

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NORTH DRUID HILLS – Brittany Harper was sitting in a high school classroom in West Point, MS, on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. It was the beginning of her senior year.

She was headed to college the next year. She knew she wanted to work in an industry that allowed her to help people. But she said she spent that day with her classmates, watching the devastation unfold on television.

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These photos are a local component to a larger project in coordination with Action America to document how the country has been affected by the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

See how you can become an Actionist and turn the events of 9/11 into positive action atwww.ActionAmerica.com and look for more local coverage of the 10th anniversary of 9/11 on Patch.