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This Friday marks the 25th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, which cost nearly 3,000 lives. The victims included several individuals with ties to the Houston area — among them, a young U.S. Navy electronics technician, a conservative commentator for CNN, a sales worker for a magazine publisher, and a firefighter.
Kevin Maynard is a softspoken man in his mid-50s. He works at Station 80 of the Houston Fire Department and serves as a trustee of the Houston Professional Firefighters Association. But for a single point on a written exam, he might have found himself at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11.
Kevin and his twin brother, Keithroy, grew up in Brooklyn, New York's East Flatbush neighborhood. Their father, a longtime New York City firefighter, encouraged them both to take the New York Fire Department's (FDNY's) entrance exam in the 1990s. Keithroy scored a 98 on the written test, Kevin a 97.
"So, in New York, because of the amount of people that take the test," Kevin said, "the difference between a 98 and a 97 could be like a thousand people. So, he got offered the job."
FDNY reached out to Kevin a year and a half later. By that time, Kevin was working as an aircraft mechanic for Continental Airlines, which has since merged into United Airlines, in Houston. Kevin, who loved aviation, decided to stick with his job. But the brothers remained close.
"I'm the oldest of both of us, but ... he was a much [more] commanding guy," Kevin said. "He was always a take-charge person. He was always the leader, and I was always the follower."
Kevin flew up from Houston to New York to celebrate the annual Caribbean Carnival with Keithroy over the Labor Day weekend in 2001. Kevin remembers he was late getting to LaGuardia to catch his return flight.
"Ironically, we got there, and there was a display in the main lobby. It’s about the 1993 bombing at the Trade Center," Kevin said. "Since I missed my flight, he hung out with me for a little bit. So, we were there for a while looking at some of the pictures. And then it was time for me to leave, so he got in his car, and I just remember his black SUV just making the curve at LaGuardia and leaving."
The two spoke by phone twice on the Monday after Kevin returned.
On Tuesday, Sept. 11, when Kevin first heard on the TV at work that a plane had hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center, he wasn't too concerned. He figured it was just one of the sightseeing planes or helicopters that regularly flew up and down the nearby Hudson River. He wasn't immediately worried about his brother.
"My brother normally works in Brooklyn. So, I didn’t know he was working, and I wouldn’t have expected him to be there," Kevin said. "I just thought, it’s going to be a long day for the Fire Department of New York, and that was it until the second plane hit. Then I realized it was something different."
Keithroy's Engine 33, Ladder Company 9, was one of the first units deployed to the North Tower on 9-11. Kevin would not find out until he got a call from his mother.
As the towers burned, then-Solicitor General of the United States Ted Olson was also watching the coverage of the attacks on the World Trade Center on the TV in his office in Washington, D.C. Olson's wife Barbara, a Houston native and conservative commentator, had taken a flight out of Dulles International Airport earlier that morning.
Speaking on CNN's Larry King Live later that week, Olson described his relief as he did a quick calculation of time and distance and realized there was no way his wife's flight could have been one of the planes that hit the Twin Towers.
"And then one of the secretaries rushed in and said, ‘Barbara’s on the phone,'" Olson said. "I jumped for the phone so glad to hear Barbara’s voice, and then she told me, ‘Our plane has been hijacked.'"
Barbara, calling from her cell phone, told her husband the hijackers had seized control of the plane with knives and boxcutters. She and the other passengers, as well as some of the crew, had been herded to the back of the plane. Olson said his wife's voice remained calm, even as he relayed the information to her that the World Trade Center had been attacked.
"I felt that I just had to tell her," Olson said, adding that he would always wonder if he'd done the right thing. "We then both reassured one another this plane was still up in the air, this plane was still flying, and this was going to come out okay."
Olson said, though, that he already realized the truth: that the hijackers were likely bent on an attack similar to the one unfolding in New York, and Barbara was in mortal danger.
"We spoke for a minute or two, then the phone was cut off," Olson said. "Then, she got through again, and we spoke for another two or three or four minutes."
Between the calls, Olson contacted the Command Center at the Justice Department to let them know another plane had been hijacked, and his wife was on it. When she called back, Barbara said she could see houses outside the windows, and she thought the plane was heading northeast.
"We segued back and forth between expressions of feeling for one another and this effort to exchange information," Olson said, "and then the phone went dead."
Soon after, the TV began carrying reports of an explosion at the Pentagon, and Olson said he was certain his wife was dead.
The victims at the Pentagon also included Daniel Martin Caballero, a 21-year-old electronics technician with the U.S. Navy and a recent graduate of Stephen F. Austin High School in Fort Bend County.
Less than half an hour later, the South Tower of the World Trade Center crumbled to the ground. At almost the same moment, dozens of families received cell phone calls from loved ones on United Airlines Flight 93. That flight, too, had been hijacked. The passengers and crew were preparing to rush the cockpit to try to seize control back from the hijackers.
UA Flight 93 crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, killing all on board. The dead included Lauren Catuzzi Grandcolas, a graduate of Houston's Stratford High School who worked in sales for Good Housekeeping magazine. The revolt of the passengers and crew had saved countless lives at the hijackers' intended target, which is now believed to have been either the U.S. Capitol or the White House.
The North Tower of the World Trade collapsed just before 10:30 a.m. Eastern Time. As ABC's Peter Jennings reported the deaths of thousands of people, Kevin Maynard desperately tried to reach his brother, Keithroy.
"And I couldn't get through because the lines were jammed, so there was no service," Kevin said, "and I remember looking at the TV for a while, hoping for some kind of news, and I called his cell phone. I got his voicemail."
Not until 10 p.m. that evening would Kevin learn from his brother's captain that Keithroy was among the missing and that Kevin needed to fly to New York.
"My brother and I, we’re identical twins. So, when I got to New York, I went to his firehouse, and they thought I was him," Kevin said. "And I had to correct that."
Keithroy Maynard's remains would not be identified until 2003.
By that time, Kevin — encouraged by Houston firefighters he'd met at the 2002 Annual Firefighter Memorial in Colorado Springs — had passed the tests to join the Houston Fire Department. He's marking his 23rd anniversary with the department this month.
Kevin said he wouldn't give up his experience as a firefighter for anything. It makes him feel closer to his brother.
"I think, as a firefighter, I understand now ... the brotherhood as, you know, as firefighters and the stuff that we do and ... the people that we honor that made the ultimate sacrifice," he said.
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