A Stair Climb and Day to Never Forget

It was eerily like 9/11. The morning started out just as clear and then a sudden fog draped the air with a smoky shroud. Even people who were not at Ground Zero in New York City on that day of tragedy noticed it.

, medical and operational advisor to Greenbelt's Animal Shelter and a veterinarian at Lynn Animal Hospital, had spent weeks at Ground Zero treating search and rescue dogs. Sunday morning's weather took her on a massive flashback to a place she never wants to go back to, but can't get out of her mind — especially at the anniversary time each year.

So, on Sept. 11, 2011, 10 years after terrorists crashed planes into the World Trade Center towers, she came to Greenbelt's first 9/11 Memorial Stair Climb to watch firefighters and civilians of all ages scale the Maryland Trade Center (MTC) One, the middle and tallest high-rise office building in Greenway Center.

They walked up 10 stories of the 35-story building 11 times, taking brief pauses to take the elevator back down, walk around the building, and re-enter. This was the equivalent of walking up the 110 stories of the World Trade Center towers. 

Each climber wore one or more badges with the name, photo and firefighting unit of one of the 343 New York City firefighters who died on 9/11, along with the slogan, "We will never forget."

MTC building manager Jonathan Gordon, Sr. told Patch that the best estimate was that there were 84 climbers — 79 of whom finished — and 19 who chose the alternative of walking 3 miles around the building.

Before the climb began at 9:05 a.m., the same time that the first New York City firefighters had entered the North Tower, Prince George's Fire Chief Marc Bashoor told the crowd that there would be five announcements during the climb, each of a significant event during 9/11, made at about the time each incident happened:

Please note, in some cases, these times are not the exact times the incidents happened, but are rather near the time they happened — and are the times that the Memorial Stair Climb remembered these events.

1.  8:46 a.m.:  American Airlines Flight Number 11 hit the North Tower.

2.  9:02 a.m.:  United Airlines Flight Number 175 hit the South Tower.

3.  9:38 a.m.:  American Airlines Flight Number 77 hit the Pentagon.

4.  9:59 a.m.:  The South Tower begins to collapse.

5.  10:10 a.m.: United Airlines Flight Number 93 crashed in Pennsylvania.

Kressler has the whole timeline on her cell phone.  At a luncheon at the Greenbelt Volunteer Fire Department after the Stair Climb, she told Patch that the first plane hit the North Tower at roughly 466 miles an hour (mph) and the second plane hit the South Tower at about 590 mph.

Greenbelt's mayor pro tem, Emmett Jordan, was one of the stair climbers.

Money raised in the growing number of Stair Climb events around the country goes to the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation to honor fallen heroes and aid their survivors.