Tara Jones, a Louisburg teacher, told WRAL News that she doesn't take teaching children for granted in her decades-long career; not in 2026, and not on September 11, 2001, when she was just blocks away from the Twin Towers.
A few blocks from the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, Jones worked at Children's Discovery Center, a daycare in Building 5 of the World Trade Center, which was a short walk away from the Twin Towers.
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Diane Reeves, a Dallas mother whose son was a student at the daycare in 2001, said Jones was like a second mother to many of the children there.
Around 8:46 a.m. that day, Jones said she heard an unfamiliar sound.
"I remember hearing this extremely loud swooshing sound overhead," Jones said. "I could see through the windows, and I'm like, 'Oh, wow. Look at all those people running down West Street.'"
What she thought was a car crash was American Airlines Flight 11 colliding into the North Tower of the World Trade Center, the first of four plane crashes initiated by 19 hijackers in New York City, Washington, D.C. and western Pennsylvania.
Jones and her coworkers began evacuating the children and made a split-second decision to take the children outside a side door used by other employees to take out garbage. Jones believes that if they had taken their original route to Building 7, she and the children would've died that day.
Jones, her coworkers and the children they cared for traveled from Lower Manhattan to Chinatown before finding shelter at a local hospital.
"We could see this big, gaping hole in the building," Jones said. "I'm like, 'Oh my god, they really did,' because we're still thinking it's a bomb."
As Jones and her coworkers moved the children through a nearby cemetery, United Airlines Flight 175 hit the South Tower.
"All of a sudden, the second plane hit," Jones said. "We can hear it coming...and it kind of rocks the ground."
When they reached the hospital, staff members offered some of the children art supplies. One of the children drew images of what they saw as they left World Trade Center Plaza.
"She drew the towers and she drew fire," Jones said. "She drew the planes, she drew the bodies dropping."
While 2,977 people died in the attacks, Jones and her coworkers made sure the 28 children in their care were not part of that total, leading them to safety before Building 5 was destroyed.
"Tara is amazing, she's like a second mother to all of the kids," Reeves said.
Jones moved to Louisburg in 2003 and works at Kid's Corner. 25 years after the attacks, Jones said that her trauma from that day remains.
"I didn't sleep for years. Maybe two hours a night. Even now...last night I didn't sleep," Jones said.
As many across the country look back on the 25 years since the attacks, Jones told WRAL News that her faith keeps her grounded and moving forward.
"That was the beginning of my healing," Jones said.