A morning that changed everything: Local residents remember 9/11, 25 years later

Twenty-five years ago this week, our corner of the 805 woke up to a world that would never feel quite the same. Many of us watched the towers fall from our living rooms in Thousand Oaks, from classrooms, from offices off the 101 — and some of our neighbors were in the skies above New York that morning, seeing it all firsthand.

The Thousand Oaks Acorn recently gathered those local memories, and reading them is a reminder that 9/11 wasn't just a national story. It was a Thousand Oaks story too — of quiet car rides to school, of parents rushing home, of strangers comforting each other in parking lots.

A quarter century on, sharing these recollections keeps the humanity of that day alive for neighbors who weren't old enough to remember. However you mark the anniversary, take a moment to check in on the people around you. That's the part of 9/11 we can still carry forward.