London firefighters to mark the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks with a virtual ceremony – London | The Canadian News

On Saturday, members of the London Fire Department will hold a virtual ceremony to mark the grim 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The ceremony will honor and honor the firefighters who gave their lives in New York two decades ago, as well as the firefighters who died while serving the City of London.

“We also take this moment to pay tribute to all first responders and all of our military services who serve our country in times of war and peace,” read a tweet from the London Professional Firefighters Association (LPFFA) on Thursday.

Like last year, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced the ceremony to take place virtually rather than in person, as it has in previous years. The ceremony will be broadcast on the LPFFA Facebook page.

Nearly 3,000 people were killed and more than 25,000 injured in the attacks on September 11, 2001, when four hijacked commercial planes crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field near rural Shanksville, Pennsylvania. .

The attack and subsequent collapse of the World Trade Center killed 343 members of the New York City Fire Department, becoming the deadliest single incident for firefighters in the U.S.

Hundreds of Canadian fire crews descended on the city in the wake of the attacks to offer support to local fire crews who were searching the rubble for those buried under steel, concrete and glass.

“They were constant fire trucks that circulated through the streets,” recalled Londoner Mike Peerless this week from being in the city that day.

Peerless, a McKenzie Lake attorney, had flown to New York that morning for a meeting not far from the World Trade Center, and witnessed United Airlines Flight 175 flying to the South Tower from his taxi at 9:03 a.m.

“It turned out that a lot of those people were injured,” he said of emergency personnel who ran into the towers. “Many of the lifeguards were running up the stairs trying to help people when the buildings collapsed.”

“Although I had never thought about the idea of ​​those buildings collapsing, without a doubt those people knew perfectly well, that this was a risk, and even so they gave up on us.”

Peerless wasn’t close enough to Ground Zero to see firefighters and others trying to rescue people from the rubble – lower Manhattan below 14th Street was closed For several days everyone but local residents, but recalls seeing countless ash-covered first responders sitting on sidewalks, leaning on emergency vehicles, in shock or crying.

“Thinking about what New York City firefighters or police would see in their lives, and making them react that way, really brought home someone like me who was walking around and hadn’t seen anything on TV yet… horrible it was, ”he said.

The LPFFA September 11 memorial will air on the association Facebook page.

-— with files from Matthew Trevithick and The Canadian Press