By Julie Shapiro, Jill Colvin, Ben Fractenberg and Tom Liddy
DNAinfo Staff
MANHATTAN — Katie Marie McCloskey had been working as a computer help desk technician in the North Tower of the World Trade Center for just six weeks when she was killed by the impact of Flight 11.
Each year, her father Dick McCloskey makes a pilgrimage to the site from South Bend Indiana to pay tribute to his daughter, who was just 25 when she died.
"She was the family comedian," he said, standing near the World Trade Center site on the 10th anniversary of her death. "She was very, very funny. And always getting into trouble. If ten people did something wrong, she'd get caught."
"We used to call her Catastrophe Kate. She was always in the wrong place at the wrong time."
When McCloskey's family first rushed to the city after the attacks, they walked the streets for two days, going from hospital to hospital in a fog.
Now, Dick said, returning to the site has become a source of comfort, as his family gathered with other families who feel their pain to remember, and to look ahead as the new towers on the Trade Center site soar higher into the sky.
"You have to move on," he said. "You don't have much choice."
"This is a good reminder of the moment for the entire world. It's a thing to come out of evil."
McCloskey and his wife, daughter, grandson and other family members were among the thousands of family members who packed the World Trade Center site to remember those who were lost on 9/11.
Betty Ann Ong, 45, was a flight attendant on American Airlines Flight 11 when it was hijacked by Al Qaeda operatives.
But instead of panicking, Ong kept her composure and alerted authorities that the plane was under attack. She has been hailed as a hero since.
"It was her that alerted authorities that the plane had been hijacked and that there was an attack," said her brother-in-law Edward J. Herrera, 70.
He said that returning to the site provided an important chance to heal.
"It's our way of honoring those who perished," he said. "We've become a big American family."
Ong was such an inspiration to her niece, Adrienne Herrera, 26, that she moved to New York.
"She was a world traveler," she said. "It felt like she would have wanted me to do something big."
In an emotional scene, the families of the victims got to visit the 9/11 memorial for the first time. Many left mementos and took imprints of their loved ones' names.
"I was crying," said Lisa Procaccio, whose father, Louis Aversano Jr. was killed in the South Tower at the age of 58. "I traced the letters of his name and I missed him. The memorial, in the heart of the city, feels like it's a place of peace. I love it."
Katia Carroll and her mother Ruvina Cox-Holloway came to the memorial for Darryl McKinley, 26, Ruvina's son and Katia's brother, who worked at Cantor Fitzgerald with his fiancee Angela Rosario.
The couple died together and will live on forever with their names placed next to each other on the memorial.
"Darryl and Angela's names are together and it's a beautiful thing," said Carroll. "They're always together, always. I ran my hands over his name — it was like a piece of him was there."
Others were comforted by the fact that they got to stand near their loved ones for the first time in years.
"It's the closest I'll ever get to her again," said Mary Dwyer, 36, of Brooklyn, whose sister, Lucy Fishman, worked for Aon in the South Tower.
Still others said that being at the site stirred up powerful emotions.
Sal Lucchese, 45, of, lost his brother in law Michael Bane, 33, who worked for Marsh & McLennan.
"It's up and down. It's like a roller coaster," he said. "There are points where it's back to normal, but then Sept. 11 comes around again, and it stirs up a lot of emotion. Especially 10 years. People went on with their lives, but it comes back."
While many of those who'd come from far and wide to be at Ground Zero for the anniversary talked about the 10th anniversary as the time to move on, Janet Mcgee told a very different story.
"When you meet a soul mate, it's just hard to replace," said Mcgee, who still lives in the same Long Island home she shared with her husband, Charles, who was killed on 9/11 at the age of 51.
Charles was a chief building engineer at the World Trade Center and had stayed behind "to help people out," she said.
Asked if there was any sense of closure on the ten year anniversary, she shook her head.
"That doesn't exist," she said. "There's no such thing as closure. There can't be." Still, she said, the tenth anniversary felt different than the ones before. "I don't know what. It's a different emotion about it."
Emelda Williams, 79, lost her son, Glennroy Neblett in the attack at the age of 42. Williams, who lives in Trinidad, has come to the ceremony each and every year since then to commemorate his life.
"This year was different. Now he has a home," she said of the memorial, which she praised.
Still, she said, the pain never eases.
"It feels the same. I miss him all the time," she said.
New Jersey's Tommi Aberle, 66, who lost her nephew, Robert Scandole, on 9/11 at the age of 36, praised the memorial for finally giving her nephew a place to rest.
"I just think now he can rest in peace because there's a place for them," she said.
Firefighters and first responders from around the world jammed into the area around the World Trade Center site to pay tribute to their fallen brothers.
James Brady, 50, a firefighter, and his wife Theresa, 33, used to live in New Jersey but have since moved to Virginia. James was a paramedic in New Jersey when the towers hit. He arrived just after the towers fell.
"It was like a nuclear winter. There was an enormous silence and devastating destruction. People just walked around. No one even spoke," he said.
He spent a week working on the pile and has returned to the site every year since.
"It changed everything," he said. "It gave you a sense of just how fragile life is and how quickly it can be over."
So many family members showed up for the 10th anniversary ceremony, in fact, that some had to watch from an overflow area with obstructed views.
"If you came any time after 8:15 (a.m.), there was no room," said Adrienne Quinones, 57, from Queens, who came to support her good friend, Judith McNeil, whose police officer brother was killed on 9/11.
"There wasn't enough. It's just too many."
The city said that no family members were turned away from the site.
First responders, though, were forced to watch the ceremonies on screens in Zuccotti Park, near the Trade Center site.
"I don't take it personally," said Ron Salguera, 44, who was working as a paramedic in Battalion 22 on 9/11. "You got used to stepping around rubble and politics."
With pool reports.
