Biloxi will commemorate the one-year anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks with a Wednesday morning ceremony at the city’s soon-to-open Firefighters Museum and simultaneous observances at eight fire stations across the city.
The half-hour ceremony, which will be broadcast live on local radio station Q 92.5, will begin at 9 a.m. It will include lowering of flags at the museum and each fire station; a Tolling of the Bell to mark exact times of the collapse of the World Trade Center towers; and remarks by the fire department’s chaplain. A reception will be held afterward in the Howard Avenue museum.
The public is invited to attend the ceremony at the museum or at their neighborhood fire station. Biloxi’s observance, part of a national effort coordinated by the International Association of Fire Chiefs, is being organized by the Fire Department, but it will involve members of the Biloxi Police Department and other local emergency workers.
Fire Chief David Roberts said the ceremony is designed to pay tribute to firefighters, other emergency workers and civilians who perished at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania, and to emergency workers who continue to face extraordinary challenges since that day.
Said Mayor A.J. Holloway, who will issue a proclamation during the ceremony: “It’s fitting that we pause to pray for those who were lost, for their families, and to pray that something like this never happens again. And, finally, we should also use this occasion to say a special prayer for the dedicated emergency workers who serve us every day.”
(To contact organizer Joe Boney, Fire Department battalion chief, call 435-6200.)
