On Sept. 11, 2001, Adrian Grieve, then the director of emergency services for the Berks County Chapter of the American Red Cross, was on his way to Harrisburg to teach a mass fatality management course when news broke that a plane had struck the World Trade Center.

As reports continued to unfold, he and others were called to work in the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency’s emergency operations center. Within an hour of the crash of United Flight 93, the Red Cross asked Adrian to deploy to Shanksville.

Adrian’s journey with the American Red Cross began with an aviation tragedy. He grew up in Lockerbie, Scotland, the town devastated by the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103. Having recently moved to the United States, Adrian struggled to reach family and friends for three days after the attack. A supervisor at the time suggested he connect with the Red Cross and its disaster response work. Adrian became a Disaster Action Team volunteer in 1989 and joined the organization as a staff member three years later.

“I do most of our mass casualty responses now across the country,” Adrian said. “That really is as a direct result of the Pan Am 103 crash and just how it impacted me personally.”

On the afternoon of Sept. 11, 2001, Adrian was on the road to Somerset County, where he would spend nearly a month helping to coordinate the Red Cross response alongside local, state and federal partners. He oversaw government operations, working with partner agencies to gather information, identify needs and determine how the Red Cross could provide support.

Although he and many other responders had worked on disaster operations before, they quickly understood this response would be different.

“The responsibility hit us pretty quickly that this was something bigger than ourselves,” Adrian said. “There was a sense that this was going to be historical and so we needed to do it properly. There was a lot of weight on our shoulders to make sure we got this right.”

One of Adrian’s clearest memories is his first view of the crash site.

“You expect this big accident site with lots of pieces of wreckage and everything, and there was really nothing,” he said.

From his vantage point above the site, Adrian could see the crater where Flight 93 went down and several scorched trees in the distance. “It was sort of eerie,” he said.

As it became clear that there were no survivors, the Red Cross focused on supporting families and emergency responders. Volunteers provided meals and refreshments to recovery crews, while disaster mental health and spiritual care workers provided emotional support. As families began arriving in the area, the Red Cross began planning for two memorial services to honor the lives lost on Flight 93. One of Adrian’s enduring memories was how the entire community rallied around them.

A local golf course became the site of the memorial services. Red Cross volunteers and partners coordinated the program, transportation, tents, seating, security and countless other details. When discussing how to get families to the service across the carefully manicured fairways, the course owners made their priorities clear.

“They were like, ‘Take the buses on the fairway. Take the buses down to the tent,’” Adrian said. “We said, ‘But these are buses.’ They said it didn’t matter. They didn’t want the families to be put out.”

The gesture reflected the spirit Adrian witnessed throughout the response.

“People were just like, ‘Worry about the families, not about us, not about our business. Do what’s right.’ Those things stick with you,” Adrian said.

Adrian also spent time with family members who arrived in Pennsylvania carrying unimaginable grief. With the airspace closed for days after the tragedy, some had driven nearly 24 hours to reach Shanksville.

“You send your loved one on a flight and you don’t think anything about it,” Adrian said. “It happens thousands of times a day for thousands, if not millions, of people. And all of a sudden, life has changed in a second.”

Nearly 25 years later, Adrian still considers it an honor to have been part of the response.

“Being able to go into a situation that you’ve got lots of other people who would love to come in and help, and we are asked to come in and help, and we are permitted to be there and talk to the families, it really is an incredible honor,” he said.

Looking back, he hopes people remember the support Red Cross volunteers provided in the aftermath of 9/11.

“When these families were struggling, when they were in tears, when they just didn’t know what to do next, they didn’t know who to turn to, we were there,” Adrian said. “The Red Cross was there, and we’ll always be there.”