9/11 Ceremony set for Monday, 9:30 a.m.

The 9/11 Ceremony will be held on Monday, Sept. 11, to remember the lives lost in the Sept. 11 attacks. Harrison Fire Training Officer Ron Lemley said this year’s start time isn’t an exact time yet. “We expect it to be around 9:30 a.m.”

Each year, runners from the National Park Service and other agencies run the flags to the Harrison fire station and their arrival kicks off the start of the ceremony.

This year there will be a new route for the runners since Harrison Fire Department Station One has moved to Harrison City Hall located on Industrial Park Road. The runners will depart the Bellefonte Harps at 7:46 a.m (CST) – the moment when the first hijacked commercial passenger plane hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center complex in lower Manhattan, New York, in what would later be called the Sept. 11 attacks, or simply 9/11.

The Boone County Sheriff’s department will give the runners an escort from Harps to the Harrison city limits. Then, the Harrison Police Department will continue the escort to the fire station at 118 Industrial Park Road.

Mayor Jackson said, “We are proud of our emergency services departments. This is one way we can honor the job they do daily by paying tribute to those who lost their lives in the line of duty on September 11.”

Everyone is invited to the ceremony, but parking will be limited.

The Sept. 11 attacks (September 11, 2001), known as 9/11, consisted of four commercial passenger planes being hijacked by 19 al Qaeda terrorists. The first plane, American Airlines Flight 11, crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City, at 8:46 a.m. EST. Sixteen minutes later, at 9:03 a.m. EST, the second hijacked plane, United Airlines Flight 175, crashed into the South Tower. Both 110-story towers collapsed within an hour and 40 minutes, which caused the destruction of the remaining five structures of the World Trade Center complex. The third hijacked flight, American Airlines Flight 77, crashed into the Pentagon at 9:37 a.m. EST, causing a partial collapse of the structure. The fourth and final flight, United Airlines Flight 93, crashed in Stonycreek Township, near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, at 10:03 a.m. EST. Investigators later determined that Flight 93’s target was either the U.S. Capitol building or the White House.

The attacks killed nearly 3,000 people, injured thousands more, and instigated a multi-decade global war on terror. It has been described as as the deadliest terrorist act in human history and remains the deadliest incident for both firefighters and law enforcement personnel in the history of the U.S.