Mike Wolanin | The Republic Members of the Columbus Fire Department watch as a garrison flag is hoisted into the air before the annual Sept. 11 remembrance ceremony at Columbus City Hall in Columbus, Ind., Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2024.
City officials and local first responders looked back with moments of silence and a ceremony to commemorate the terror attacks 23 years ago.
The city of Columbus conducted a public remembrance ceremony at Columbus City Hall at 8:40 a.m. Wednesday — 23 years to the day that nearly 3,000 people were killed when hijacked planes crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field, in an attack that reshaped U.S. foreign policy and domestic fears.
The attacks also caused the deaths of 441 first responders, the largest loss of emergency responders in a single day in U.S. history, according to the 9/11 Memorial Museum. Since then, nearly as many first responders who survived the attacks have died from illnesses caused by their exposure to toxic materials at Ground Zero.
“We always are compelled to have the ceremony every year to honor those that gave their lives and remember those that lost their lives during the attacks,” said CFD spokesman Capt. Mike Wilson. “It’s hard to believe that it has been 23 years.”
“Another thing to always remember is that despite the fact that we lost nearly 3,000 people that day, a lot of those first responders that worked at Ground Zero, many more of those that survived the attacks have succumbed to various medical conditions — predominantly cancers — that have been directly related to their work at Ground Zero following both the rescue and then recovery attempts,” Wilson said. “There are a lot of families that are still struggling from the direct exposure that they got there.”
In the fire service, we always say, ‘never forget,’ … (which) has been adopted in the fire service to remember the fallen, to honor them and never forget their sacrifice of selflessness,” Wilson added. “That’s why we want to do that here in Columbus ever year, to never forget and by doing so honoring those who have lost their lives.”
