Inside a fire station in Riverside is a steel beam from the World Trade Center. No matter how many years have passed, Michael Koury, who managed a rescue team, said, "When 9/11 starts coming around, I do tend to get a little more anxious than my normal day to day.” 

Firefighters David Austin and Michael Koury were both leaders of a FEMA Urban Search and Rescue Task Force from Riverside County — one of 28 teams nationwide.

"We made up a team of 60 people that could respond to any kind of natural disaster or human disaster and provide resources, including rescue," Koury said.

Austin remembers being at home watching the morning news when he got the call from the fire chief.

"He said, 'Get ready. You’re going,'" Austin recalled.

"I was in the process of driving to a training class that was in Anaheim to teach collapse building rescue," Koury said.

That night, they found themselves on a plane bound for New York, where they would spend 11 days at Ground Zero.

"This was above and beyond anything that I could have ever imagined in my career," Koury said. "It was like unbelievable the amount of destruction and debris that was dispersed among the many blocks that the World Trade Center sat on."

It is the subject of Tim Roche’s newest documentary entitled "One City Remembers."

The topic is deeply personal to Roche, a Riverside resident who was born and raised on Long Island with family in law enforcement and fire.

"I decided that we would have the most in-depth conversation with a FEMA Urban Search and Rescue Task Force that has been done to date," he said.

Roche said he has the utmost respect for the men and women who laid everything on the line for complete strangers.

"Those evacuating screamed out, 'You’re running the wrong way.' Can you imagine? We are running out for our lives. They’re running up the tower carrying 60 plus pounds, and they weren’t going to come out," Roche said.

Returning home posed its own set of challenges for the task force.

"I didn’t want to talk about it at all when I came home. I talked to my wife and my family but that was about it," Koury said. 

Austin, however, said he ended up talking at various events for almost six months.

"It actually became too repetitive and at one point in time, I went and told the fire chief, ‘I’m done with this. I can’t do this anymore,’" he said.

For those directly involved, the horrors of that day are etched in their memories.

"It doesn’t matter if it’s five years, 10 years, 20 years, it’s something that I will always remember and always reflect on," Koury said.

They hope preserving their stories in the documentary will enable the world to never forget.

"That’s my big fear is that we’ve become complacent, and I’m truly afraid this could happen again," Austin said.