Passages
They have not forgotten 9/11
A line of firefighters filed past a rusted piece of steel outside the Midway Fire and Rescue headquarters at 8:46 a.m. They touched the gray granite that held the fragment from the World Trade Center.
Wearing turnout gear that weighs 50 to 60 pounds, the 10 firefighters walked a circuit around the station, the school and the library in Willbrook that they normally use for physical training. They walked for 102 minutes.
“A hundred and two minutes is a long time,” Master Firefighter Keith Zeigenhorn told them. “You’re going to get tired.”
But he reminded them that 23 years ago firefighters in New York walked up 90 flights of stairs to reach the scene of the passenger jet that hit the World Trade Center as part of a terrorist attack that killed nearly 3,000 people.
And when they were told to evacuate, Zeigenhorn said, “they refused.” They stayed to tend to the victims.
“It’s a day that we promised never to forget,” Fire Chief Brent McClellan said.
It hasn’t worked out that way.
“For others, that willingness to forget has come true, and it has faded,” said Brandon Ellis, Georgetown County’s director of Emergency Services.
The idea for the memorial walk came from the firefighters, McClellan said.
He determined that Midway will continue to remember Sept. 11, 2001, with an annual ceremony as they did this week before staff and a small crowd.
The steel beam from Ground Zero was a gift to Midway and was turned into a memorial for the 10th anniversary as an Eagle Scout project. It continues to evolve.
Landscaping was added last year, McClellan said, as a donation.
“This site is open any time the public wants to view it. A lot of work went into making sure we never forget,” he said.
Assistant Chief Jim Crawford was a firefighter in Pittsburgh in 2001. He was among 20 members of the department sent to New York on Sept. 12.
They arrived on Vesey Street, which was filled with 6 to 8 feet of debris.
“We knew there’d be civilians and possibly firefighters buried in that debris,” he said.
After two hours of digging, they found the first one. They stayed at Ground Zero for two more days.
“The saying ‘Never Forget’ means just that,” Crawford said.
