A panel of community leaders gathered at All Saints Episcopal Church Wednesday night to share stories of what happened to Hoboken on September 11, 2001.

The discussion, billed as “How We Responded on an Unthinkable Day,” was sponsored by All Saints, the Hoboken Historical Museum, the Hoboken Public Library and the 9/11 Hoboken Remembers Committee. Over 75 residents attended.

Award-winning New York Times journalist and Hoboken resident Diana Henriques moderated the discussion, which included former Mayor David Roberts, Laurie Wurm, then the parish missionary of All Saints, Richard Evans, the incident commander at St. Mary's Hospital, Jill Singleton, an administrator at Hoboken Charter School and Ann Wycherley, a bartender at Duffy's Tavern on the corner of Third and Bloomfield Streets.

Sandra O'Connor Carey, who lost her husband Keith on 9/11, opened the discussion, which started off with the panelists remeniscing about where they were that morning.

Roberts, in office for less than six weeks, said he had been walking to City Hall with one of his directors when they met an assembly of residents looking at the sky. The residents said a plane had hit the first tower. Roberts and his colleague got to Pier A just in time to see the second plane crash.

“This jet was flying so low. The engines were being accelerated. Seconds later it banked and crashed," Roberts said. "My colleague I was with, literally his knees buckled."

Wurm was tasked with maintaining All Saints while Reverend Geoff Curtiss was away in California. She said immediately people came to the church seeking comfort.

“It was a moment where I really understood when something so horrific comes that everything else is stripped away. The thing that people seem to need even more than safety or home is to know, 'where is God' in this event,” she said.

Singleton had to keep a school full of children calm, many of who started wonder what was happening as parents arrived to withdraw their sons or daughters.

She and the staff tried to locate the parents they knew worked in the vicinity of the trade center. They made a list and crossed off names as they had confirmed each was safe.

After they had crossed off the all names Singleton said the school told the children that an accident had happened. However, the school eventually discovered that a father who had called his wife after the first tower was struck was later killed in the second.

As the incident commander at St. Mary's (Now Hoboken University Medical Center), Evans coordinated the hospital's emergency response. At one point local authorities asked if they could prepare body bags in the St. Mary's parking lot.

“I said 'no, absolutely not, send us people who are alive, who need help,'" Evans said.

The hospital constructed a makeshift center at the Hoboken Terminal to decontaminate people being dropped off by ferry. Evans estimated the center sprayed over 15,000 dust-covered people.

Evans said the hospital had been prepared to treat victims in the emergency room, but as the day progressed saw that there weren't very many.

“We did not get the thousands of people that we had expected,” he said. “It was disheartening. We were hoping to see more people and be able to help them.”

Wycherely was the only bartender available in Hoboken to open Duffy's Tavern. The owner was in Jersey City waiting to hear from his wife. Wycherley said that there was no question of opening the bar, and as people made their way to or found themselves in Hoboken they started to come in seeking fellowship and comfort.

“One of the first people to come in didn't know he was in New Jersey,” she said. “The first couple of hours I just said 'you're okay' to anybody who walked in the door.”

Henriques noted similarities between people coming into their neighborhood bar for comfort and also finding it by volunteering at a school, church or hospital.

“I can't imagine what it would have been like to go home that day into an empty apartment,” she said.

Henriques also asked the panel to talk about the days after the attack. Wycherley gave an anecdote about how the jukebox in Duffy's had been silent for days but later provided a small happy moment when patrons eventually turned it back on and started to pull their lives together again.

Singleton went to a hardware store and bought a tarp and paint. On the tarp she pained, “pray for peace,” and hung it outside her home. Evans said he took calls from family members searching for their loved ones, and later remembered those names while reading profiles of victims in the New York Times.

“There was an effort among the collective community that found a way to comfort those people that needed comforting,” Roberts said about the days following the attacks.

Wurm talked about the victims' survivor support group at All Saints. The first meeting drew only four people but soon grew to include over 50 and met for three years.

“What I recollect over and over again was people saying that the only place they felt sane was in that room,” she said. “When they tried to share their experiences, even with their most intimate friends and family, they didn't feel understood.”

Wednesday night's discussion was recorded for posterity, O'Connor Carey said. She said she hopes it will encourage others to share there memories also.

“There are many more stories," she said. "This might be the beginning of something."