Firefighters honor victims of Sept. 11 attacks on 23rd anniversary in North Carolina, US

CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA, US - SEPTEMBER 11: Firefighters gathered in Romare Bearden Park in North Carolina, the US on Wednesday (September 11) to pay tribute to the victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks as the global repercussions continue to reverberate 23 years later. In the memorial event organized by the Firefighter Steven Coakley Foundation, a total of 2,977 flags, each bearing the photos of victims, were arranged on the ground in the shape of the Twin Towers. The chaos and terror that swept across the nation 23 years ago is increasingly becoming a distant memory for many Americans, even as the global shockwaves that followed the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks continue to be felt. For those who lived through that terrifying and sobering morning, watching as scene after scene of carnage unfolded in New York City before spreading further, the horror lives on. It all started when a passenger plane slammed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center at 8.46 a.m. on a busy Tuesday morning. Just 17 minutes later, another plane struck the South Tower. The massive 110-story skyscrapers, burning and badly damaged by the plane strikes, would collapse within minutes of one another, sending a thick cloud of toxic dust and ash ripping through the streets of Manhattan as people desperately ran away in terror. Amid the devastation in New York, another plane struck the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, just outside of Washington, D.C. at 9.37 a.m. A national panic not seen since Pearl Harbor, some 60 years prior, had rapidly set in. Just minutes after the Defense Department was struck, authorities closed all US airspace, but United Airlines Flight 93 had already been overrun. (Footage by Peter Zay/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)