The West Seattle Herald asked some folks attending the candle light vigil at the Liberty Plaza gathering the night of September 11 (See candle light vigil story here) about their feelings and recollections of that tragic day one decade ago.

1) Jim Paribello. (wearing Twin Towers t-shirt) "I came here to pay my respects. We are originally from New York City, but we lived here. My wife is from the Bronx and I am from Brooklyn. We felt so removed from what was happening in New York, and that made us sad."

2) Jeff Matthews. "I'm from Tucson, Arizona. On 9/11 I was up early and had television sets on in two rooms. I was getting ready to go to a harness racing event in Ohio my dad started. I saw this report on TV and thought at first it was a movie. Then it hit me. 'Oh my God this is not a movie.' I wound up not making my trip. For quite a while after 9/11 people were civil to each other where they weren't civil before. And I would like to see that spirit continue somehow and I would hope the tenth anniversary would bring it back for a few days. We'll see."

3) Sarah Frederick with the SW Seattle Historical Society. "On 9/11 I was a sophomore in college in Indiana, in geography class. About half of the class came in late. And the professor was like, 'Gee, why is everyone coming in so late?' A student asked, 'Don't you know what happened? An airplane crashed into the Twin Towers.' And he thought it was a hoax at first and told us to get back to work. My dad was traveling, and was supposed to fly that day out of Miami and couldn't get out. He rented a car with a bunch of people going back to the same general neighborhood. It took about a week."

4) Randy Myer with dog Mia. "We live across the street. I was here for the first 9/11 (ceremony). Everyone seemed dazed. I decided to walk down to the Statue of Liberty. It seemed like the natural thing to do. The skies were empty. It was really odd. It was just nice to be able to come and mill around here. I'll never forget it. The first anniversary was just about as emotional."

5) Libby & Paul Carr of Alki who were key in creating the new Liberty Plaza. Libby recalled, "I got a phone call early in the morning seconds after the event happened. It was really early. It was a strange man's voice I did not know and he said, 'I just want you to know your daughter is OK.' My daughter Molly was attending Barnard College in New York. I said, 'What do you mean my daughter is OK? He said the girls were rowing in a crew team of eight on the Harlem River. The whole team just watched it happened. He said, 'Turn your TV on.'" 

Paul added, "He was the father of one of the crew members. He was Canadian and his daughter was able to call him and he was able to call us because the Canadian lines weren't jammed."