You are looking at obviously a very disturbing live shot there.

That is the World Trade Center.

And we have unconfirmed reports this morning that a plane has crashed into one of the towers.

Another one hit the building.

Wow, There are no words.

It appears that something hit the Pentagon on the outside of the fifth corridor.

We have a report now that a large plane crashed this morning north of the Somerset County Airport, which is in western Pennsylvania.

It all started at 8.

45.

On a clear Tuesday morning, we had a live camera up on what looked like a smoking slash across one of the World Trade Center towers.

A passenger plane had flown into it, and I remember some of us here at CNN thinking this was some sort of freak event.

Then a second plane flew into the other tower that was at 903 a.

M.

And at that point there was this deepening dread in everyone.

Something was wrong in a way we've never seen before.

Airports, bridges, tunnels in New York and New Jersey shut down within 30 minutes.

President George W.

Bush said we were under an apparent terrorist attack.

In minutes after that, every airport in the country was closed.

That had never happened before.

It wasn't over, though.

At 9 43 AM, a third passenger jet crashed into the Pentagon.

Dark smoke rolled up from that part of that huge building.

All lies and many cameras were on that, and the two burning towers in New York and is all of us watched it 10 051 of those towers gave way where it was smoking the top part, crushing down on the rest of it and sending up debris and boiling gray clouds.

Five minutes later, part of the Pentagon collapsed and 1/4 hijacked jet crashed in a rural part of Pennsylvania.

The White House, the United Nations, the state and Justice departments, the World Bank all evacuated, America bound Atlantic flights were rerouted to Canada, and the second trade center tower came down at 10 28.

So many closings, evacuations, shutdowns.

Except for emergency response teams, the heroes of 9 11 the country virtually stopped what it was doing and gathered around TV screens.

The president appeared just after 1 p.m. And asked Americans to pray and there wasn't much else we could do.

The destruction was more or less done.

Around 10 30 it was less than two hours from the first crash, but the change it inflicted was immeasurable.

Mawr Americans were killed on September 11th, 2001 than on the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.

And when President Bush addressed the nation that night at 8 30 his tone was one of sympathy, resolve and warning to anyone who planned or supported the attacks.

We will make no distinction between the terrorist who committed these acts and those who harbor them.

In the difficult days that followed, we learned that the Al Qaeda terrorist group led by Osama bin Laden was responsible for all of this on America's attention and anger turned to Afghanistan, whose Taliban leaders were giving Al Qaeda a safe place to live and operate world changing events that occurred 19 years ago.

Today, I'm Carla Zeus for CNN.

10 Theater tax of September 11th 2001 were the worst terrorist attacks ever made on American soil.

They were physically carried out by 19 Al Qaeda terrorists who hijacked the four planes, 2977 people were killed.

That includes hundreds of firefighters, police officers and Port Authority officers who lost their lives trying to save others in remembrance of the victims.

Patriot Day was established.

President George W.

Bush signed it into law a few months after the attacks.

No members of the Senate or the House of Representatives voted against that bill.

And every year since Patriot Day has been a time when memorials, ceremonies and church services have been held in honor of those who were killed On September 11th.

This Friday, Republican President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden are both scheduled to attend a memorial event in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

That's where United Airlines Flight 93 crashed in 2001.

Ceremonies Air also scheduled to take place at the Pentagon in Washington, D.

C.

And at the National September 11th Memorial and Museum in New York City.

Though these remembrance events are going to be scaled back this year because of coronavirus concerns In New York, for example, the traditional reading of the victim's names won't be done.

Live recordings of family members saying the names will be featured.

Instead, CNN's Kate Baldwin toward the National September 11th Museum.

When it first opened, these tridents were from the north tower.

They were recovered in the aftermath of the attacks.

We brought them back here and basically built the museum all around them.

Joe Daniels is president and CEO of the 9 11 Memorial.

You're not whitewashing it.

This is the raw, dirty material.

Exactly.

I mean, this is the steel that bore the attacks the museum has built almost entirely underground, some 70 ft down.

It sits in the precise footprint of the World Trade Center.

So this is exactly where the South Tower started and went up 1350 ft, a striking display of the sheer scale of the destruction with poignant reminders of the tragedy at every turn.

I mean this This is unbelievable.

This is actually the front of this fire truck.

This is the cat wouldn't know, wouldn't know, and it's it's completely burned out and destroyed.

Then there's the retaining wall that remarkably held strong even when the towers fell when the towers came down, all that debris that was here right in this space provided bracing for that wall.

And when that debris was clear, there was a big concern that the wall would breach with Flood Lower Manhattan.

It could have been so much worse.

But this will help under all of that pressure.

Visitors will also walk alongside the survivor stairs used by hundreds of people as the buildings air crumbling, Um, running from the dust cloud to escape to safety.

And it's for all our visitors to understand the story of survival and likely one of the most emotional stops in the museum.

This art installation mimics the blue sky on that fateful morning behind it, the still unidentified remains of 9 11 victims.

The move met with mixed emotion from their families.

A still shocking statistic is at 1100.

Family members never got any human remains back to bury, never got to go through the ritual of laying their loved ones to rest.

It's not a public space at all.

Only family members are allowed back behind the wall right next door, a room dedicated to the lives of those lost.

Exactly.

That room is in an area called in Memoriam, and it's a photographic portrait of each and every one of the 2983 victims.

You see pictures a father coaching his son's Little league team, a wedding.

You see the lives that were lost that day, and not just about how they died.

It's who these people were throughout the museum, chilling reminders of the day, handmade flyers for the missing across emerging from the wreckage, everyday items simply left behind.

We helped through these artifacts and images tell that story of just it was panic.

And while the museum is vast, one small exhibit has been the biggest source of controversy.

Its focus.

The terrorists themselves, including a film criticized for not making a clear enough distinction between Islam and Al Qaeda.

There's been a lot of criticism.

Why give any time to the terrorists?

You know it, Z One way to look at it is you don't build the Holocaust Museum and not be very clear that the Nazis were the ones who committed those atrocities.

Al Qaeda was a an extremist terrorist group.

Um, but no one will come through this exhibit and in any way think that we're indicting um, and entire religion, which we in no way are.

It seems very appropriate that you end here at the last column and it's again goes right back to resiliency, seeing those messages of hope and remembrance on this very tall column that's still standing strong.

Kate Baldwin, CNN, New York And that's where we'll conclude our special coverage of the 19th anniversary of the September 11th attacks.

We'll leave you today with our traditional Friday recap of some other events of the week.

I'm Coral Jesus for CNN 10.