We were in the newsroom when it happened.

Mostly we watched in silence.

Mostly we were stunned, in a state of shock, eyes glued to the screen.

There were really no words that seemed appropriate.

It took a while before we sprang into action and realized there was work to be done.

After a while reporters went out into the community and started talking to people, getting reactions, finding connections to friends and family who were directly impacted and might have lost a loved one.

It was a day none of us will ever forget.

It was Sept. 11, 2001.

We learned 2,996 people died that day.

There are times in all of our lives we will never forget, moments in history that changed our lives forever, or at the very least changed our perspectives.

We remember the day.

We remember the events as they unfolded.

We remember who we were with at the moment.

We remember how we found out.

We remember words that were spoken.

And, it seems, we always remember where we were.

On that day when terrorists attacked America many of us, journalism colleagues, were in the same place we were every day, in the newsroom.

Though we spent every day, all day, in the same newsroom for years there are no days that we remember like that day.

Most of us remember exactly where we were on other days that live in infamy. We know where we were when the Challenger space shuttle exploded. We know where we were when we heard Elvis had died. Others remember where they were when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated or when Pearl Harbor was bombed.

We are living history at this very moment.

Every single day, and with every single death, history is being made.

Where were you during COVID-19?

Some day we all will look back on these days.

We will look back and talk about the global pandemic and collapse of the American economy.

We will tell our children and our grandchildren about how our lives changed.

We will tell them about yet another time in history when America stood still, or at the least, when she sheltered in place.

And we will all remember exactly where we were: At home.

Jim Zachary is the editor of the Valdosta Daily Times, president of the Georgia First Amendment Foundation and CNHI’s deputy national editor.