It was 16 years ago this afternoon that six individuals, including Robert Kirkpatrick of Suffern, became the first innocent victims of terrorists at the World Trade Center.

On Feb. 26, 1993 the Twin Towers were rocked by an explosion deep in the underground levels. The blast, the work of terrorists who had driven a load of explosives into the underground parking areas, came at 12:18 p.m.

Kirkpatrick, an employee of the Port Authority, was at work in the towers when he was trapped in the explosion and collapse of tons of concrete.

Kirkpatrick’s death hasn’t been forgotten in Rockland, even after 87 individuals identified by The Journal News as having links to the county died in the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

In fact, there are connections that forever link the two terror incidents.

The afternoon Kirkpatrick died, a New York City Fire Department unit headed by Lt. John Woods of Pearl River rescued 16 people trapped in a WTC stairwell. And later, they searched for victims and recovered the remains of Robert Kirkpatrick. Five others who perished, John DiGiovanni, Stephen Knapp, William Macko, Wilfredo Mercado, and Monica Rodriguez, who was pregnant, were also recovered.

Months later, when his unit was honored for their actions that day, Woods spoke about problems FDNY members had communicating over radios in the aftermath of the attack, a problem that persisted eight years later.

On Sept. 11, 2001, Woods, then retired, lost his son James, who worked for Cantor Fitzgerald at the WTC. Woods helped with the search at Ground Zero, where his son’s remains were eventually recovered and identified.

Shortly before his death, Kirkpatrick’s family moved from Lonergan Drive in Suffern, a street visited by sorrow again in 2001.

FDNY Lt. John Ginley had grown up on the street, where his parents still lived at the time he died in the terror attacks. Their neighbor, FDNY firefighter Charlie Anaya, also perished in the rescue attempts on Sept. 11.

Along with Anaya and Ginley, Kirkpatrick is remembered on the Rockland County Sept. 11 Memorial at Haverstraw Bay County Park along the Hudson River and on Suffern’s 9/11 memorials at Village Hall and at Donna Hallett Park on the street they all called home.