In an instant, the world changed on September 11, 2001.
It's been 25 years since two passenger jets struck the World Trade Centre in New York City. Another struck the Pentagon in Virginia, while passengers onboard a fourth jet managed to thwart hijackers by bringing down the plane over Pennsylvania.
Windsor might be almost 1,000 km away from New York City, but the impact here was immediate and profound.
At the time, the city had only two border crossings: the Windsor-Detroit Tunnel and the Ambassador Bridge.
For the first time, the border between Windsor and Detroit shut down, and a long line of trucks backed up at the Ambassador Bridge almost to Manning Road on Hwy. 401. As the days stretched on, the city remained bisected, and talk began of the need to add redundancy at the border.
"The Gordie Howe Bridge today is a direct result of what we saw post-9/11," said Eddie Francis, who at the time was a city councillor and went on to serve three terms as mayor. "It was then that Prime Minister Chrétien and Premier Eves came down and announced the creation of the border infrastructure fund."
That initial $300-million eventually led to construction of the $6.4-billion Gordie Howe International Bridge.
Francis, like most, has vivid memories of the morning of the terrorist attack.
"Because we were a border city and because no one really knew what was happening in those early hours, or why it was happening, there was a lot of unknown, and that unknown created a lot of palpable fear," he recalled.
In the aftermath of the terrorist attack, rules at the border changed, creating a new challenge for local tourism, since Americans accounted for 40 per cent of local tourism at Windsor's casino and at restaurants on Erie Street.
However, Francis is also quick to point out a lot of lessons came out of that day.
"Bi-national cooperation between our police department, Homeland Security, and all of the different agencies integrated to the level where there was an exchange of information, so I would suggest that probably was a positive," said Francis.
