9/11 ceremonies Wednesday at fire stations in 5 Stanislaus communities. What to expect
Patriot Day will be observed Wednesday morning in communities across Stanislaus County, honoring the victims and heroes of Sept. 11, 2001, when terrorists hijacked four commercial airplanes, deliberately crashing two of them into the World Trade Center towers and a third into the Pentagon. Passengers on the fourth plane, which has come to be known as Flight 93, fought back, and the plane was crashed into a field in Pennsylvania.
The Modesto Fire Department, Stanislaus Consolidated Fire Protection District and Turlock Fire Department will host ceremonies in Modesto, Riverbank, Oakdale, Knights Ferry and Turlock. All are scheduled to begin at 8:46 a.m., which is when Flight 11 crashed into the World Trade Center’s North Tower. At 9:03 a.m., the South Tower was struck by Flight 175.
The locations of the ceremonies are:
▪ Modesto: Station 1, 600 11th St.
▪ Riverbank: Station 26, 3318 Topeka St.
▪ Oakdale: Station 27, 450 S. Willowwood Drive
▪ Knights Ferry: Station 29, 17700 Main St.
▪ Turlock: Station 31, 540 E. Marshall St.
In Ceres, American Legion Post 49 will host a commemoration in Whitmore Park at Second and North streets at 8:30 a.m.
For the fire station gatherings, the ceremony script indicates that the public should arrive and uniformed personnel get into position at 8:30 a.m.
At 8:40, a welcoming message will be delivered, and at 8:46, there will be a call for one minute of silence to honor the lives lost.
After that, personnel will raise the American flag and then lower it to half staff.
According to the 9/11 Memorial & Museum, the attacks killed 2,977 people from 90 nations: 2,753 people were killed in New York, 184 at the Pentagon and 40 people on Flight 93.
President Joe Biden issued a proclamation Tuesday that begins: “Today, we honor the brave Americans who met the terror of September 11 with extraordinary acts of courage and sacrifice. In our darkest hour — when terrorists believed they could bring our country to its knees — those Americans proved that our Nation’s unbreakable spirit would prevail.
“In the moments, days, and years after the attacks on September 11, heroes were forged. Firefighters, police officers, and first responders ran into the inferno of jet fuel and debris at Ground Zero, risking their own lives to save the lives of others. Service members and civilians rushed into the fiery breach at the Pentagon again and again to rescue their colleagues. The patriotic passengers of Flight 93 made the ultimate sacrifice to prevent their plane from being used to take more innocent souls. And in big cities, rural towns, suburbs, and Tribal communities, hundreds of thousands of American hands went up — ready to serve our Nation in uniform.”
This story was originally published September 10, 2024 at 3:42 PM.