911: A Childhood Question That History Gave a New Meaning

911: A Childhood Question That History Gave a New Meaning

When I was a young child, I remember wondering about the number 911.

“911, what's your emergency?”

I understood what those three numbers meant. If something terrible happened—if someone was hurt, there was a fire, or people were in danger—you called 911.

But my young mind had a question:

Why 911?

I imagined that maybe, sometime long ago, something had happened involving that number—something significant enough that 911 became the number we would forever associate with an emergency.

I didn't know what it might have been. It was simply the kind of explanation a child's mind creates when something doesn't otherwise seem to have an explanation.

Of course, that isn't how 911 became America's emergency number.

The emergency number came first

In 1968, 911 was designated as a universal emergency telephone number in the United States. It was selected because it was brief, easy to remember and could be quickly dialed.

The first 911 call was made in Haleyville, Alabama, on February 16, 1968.

So there wasn't a terrible event behind the number.

911 became associated with emergencies because we deliberately made it the number to call when something was terribly wrong.

I was born more than thirty years before the events we now memorialize every September 11. When I had those childhood thoughts, September 11, 2001 was still decades in the future.

Then that day came.

September 11 gave those numbers another meaning

On September 11, 2001, the numbers I had associated with emergencies since childhood became associated with something else entirely.

9/11.

Suddenly those same three digits represented not only a number we called when something terrible happened, but a date on which something terrible had happened.

There is something haunting about that coincidence.

The emergency number and the date are not historically connected.

And yet now it is almost impossible to see those numbers without recognizing both meanings.

And then I realized something else

As I thought about this recently, something occurred to me.

My childhood question didn't disappear after September 11.

In fact, a child today might have even more reason to ask it.

There are now generations of Americans who were born long after September 11, 2001. They have never lived in a world where 9/11 wasn't part of our history.

A young person learning about September 11 might hear “Call 911 in an emergency” and naturally wonder:

Did we choose 911 as the emergency number because of what happened on September 11?

It's almost the reverse of the question I asked as a child.

I wondered whether something in the past had happened involving those numbers that caused 911 to mean emergency.

A child today could look back at September 11 and reasonably believe they had found that event.

But the answer in both cases is no.

It is an extraordinary coincidence of history.

Two histories. Three numbers.

One 911 was created to help us respond when people were in danger.

The other 9/11 became a date we remember because thousands of people were suddenly in danger, thousands of lives were lost, families were changed forever, and first responders and ordinary people demonstrated extraordinary courage trying to help others.

Perhaps that is where these two completely separate histories unexpectedly meet.

Not in how the numbers originated.

But in what people do when someone else needs help.

On September 11, we remember those who lost their lives. We remember their families. We remember the firefighters, police officers, emergency personnel and ordinary people who ran toward danger rather than away from it.

And perhaps those three familiar numbers can remind us of something else as well.

Different histories. The same three numbers.

When someone needs help, we respond.

Never forget.