PARKLAND, Fla. _ Within a month of the 9/11 terror attacks in New York, Stephen and Heidi Feuerman made a decision to leave the Big Apple in search of a safer life.
Heidi's family lived in South Florida, so they moved to Parkland, at the time a small suburb of a few thousand people. It's where they raised their kids, 15-year-old Bailey and 17-year-old Sammy, both students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High.
But on Wednesday, the fear they felt on Sept. 11, 2001, came back, they said, as a gunman shot his way into their kids' school and killed 17 before being arrested.
"This is almost like reliving that," said Stephen Feuerman, a 52-year-old who watched the attack on the Twin Towers from the 78th floor of the Empire State Building, where he worked. "How ironic is that?"
Although their children escaped the shooting with no injuries, some of their classmates died in the incident, including Sammy's close friend.
"This was supposed to be a safe place," Feuerman said.
