NATC Tower Climb Event Honors Lives Lost on September 11th | news
It was the day that changed America forever. The Jake Flake Emergency Services Institute Northeast Arizona Training Center in Taylor hosted a memorial to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the September 11th attacks and tragedy, exactly 20 years later on September 11th.
First responders from across the White Mountain region, including crews and officers from the Snowflake-Taylor Fire and Medical Department and the Snowflake-Taylor Police Department, joined current students of the NPC Fire Science and Administration of Justice, college faculties, staff and administration as well as members from . to the community in memory of the tragedy. Participants were treated to a pancake breakfast served by police academy recruits and were given a T-shirt. Representatives from the American Legion Post 126, the Honor Guard of the Navajo County Sheriff’s Office, and a bagpiper from the Timber Mesa Fire and Medical District opened the event with an emotional and patriotic flag-raising ceremony.
Nearly 100 event attendees gathered for the September ’21 event, held on a fine sunny day, in view of a similarly bright and sunlit day that began with tragedy 20 years ago when American Airlines Flight 11 in the The North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City. At 9:03 a.m., a second airliner, United Flight 175, hit the south tower. Americans and people around the world watched with horror and disbelief as live TV recorded the collapse of the South Tower at 9:59 a.m. At 10:28 a.m., the second north tower of the World Trade Center collapsed. More than 2,600 people were killed in and around the World Trade Center buildings that unfortunate day. At the U.S. Pentagon, 184 died when a third hijacked plane hit the building, and 40 more were killed in Pennsylvania when the hijackers of a fourth plane attempting to destroy the U.S. Capitol were overwhelmed by passengers taking the plane into the hilly area Farmland collapsed.
Jon Wisner, Director of Public Safety at NPC and Northern Arizona Law Enforcement Training Academy (NALETA), spoke about the meaning of the lives lost that day and how we will never forget. Wisner said, “It is appropriate for us to honor those first responders who lost their lives on this fateful day on the way to the fire; here at NATC, where we train the next generation of women and men who aspire to become firefighters and police officers. “
To conclude the 9/11 memorial event, attendees gathered to climb the NATC’s six story tower, normally used for fire and police drills as part of NPC’s NALETA and fire science programs. Eighteen of the training center’s towers would correspond to just one of the twin towers.
Betsyann Wilson, director of NPC Friends and Family (the nonprofit that supports NPC scholarships) and participant of the event, notes that many of the first responders who attended the event climbed the six-story tower 18 times, some of them carrying full emergency equipment and the wearing of oxygen and life-saving tools. “I was incredibly moved by what they did out of solidarity with those who have been lost twenty years ago to this day,” she says.
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