10 Years Later: Remembering 9/11

With the 10-year anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks approaching, Patch and Huffington Post are highlighting how the tragic events of that day have defined the last decade. We spotlight parents still coping with the loss of children in the attacks, area firefighters who carry on the memories of their fallen comrades and residents inspired by the volunteer spirit following the terrorist strikes that turned their lives around.

Today, we feature two stories from Havre de Grace.

Jess Bousa

Jess Bousa woke up in a northern New Jersey hotel room on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. He rolled out of bed, fresh off the previous night’s binge, and peered outside to see smoke billowing out of downtown Manhattan—a place where he and his friends typically went to score drugs. The drug-addicted former BMX rider thought little of the smoke.

The World Trade Center’s Twin Towers would come crashing down that day. But the 20-year-old Bousa’s life had already fallen to ruins.

A decade later, everything has changed.

Bousa—spurred into recovery by the momentous shock following the attacks—has relocated to Havre de Grace to start a family and a church. He is launching the non-denominational congregation from a previously abandoned building on Ontario Street. The building, with a view of the Susquehanna River, was the last place Bousa thought he’d be planting his roots. But on the 10-year reunion of Sept. 11, Bousa will be doing just that—delivering the first sermon for Restore Church.

It’s message: rebirth.