Hundreds climb 110 stairs at M&T Bank Stadium to honor those killed on 9/11

When the Twin Towers fell on Sept. 11, 2001, first responders everywhere were called into action.

Don Clime, an Anne Arundel County firefighter who was a police officer at the time, remembers going to New York in October that year to help relieve the officers who had been working around the clock.

Baltimore County Assistant Fire Chief Scott Ebbert said he attended several funerals to honor the 343 firefighters who were killed in the terrorist attacks.

Ben Soulier, who was in school at the time and is now a firefighter with the Anne Arundel County Fire Department, said his dad, a member of Pennsylvania Task Force 1, went to search through the rubble at Ground Zero the week of the attacks.

“I’ve always wanted to be a firefighter,” he said. “But this really just showed the importance of it and how the departments come together.”

Twenty-five years later, these men, plus about 500 others, continue to come together and honor those who lost their lives in the terrorist attacks at the annual 9/11 Memorial Stair Climb, which benefits National Fallen Firefighters Foundation.

Starting around 9 a.m., participants climbed up and down the stairs at M&T Bank Stadium on Saturday morning to represent the 110 stories of the World Trade Center. Each person wore a badge with the face and name of a first responder who died while responding to the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. At the end of the climb, the participants ring a bell and say the name of the hero on their badge.

Deputy Chief Mya McConnell and Lieutenant Kacey Merrill with the Baltimore City Fire Department both organized the event this year and said it was one of the largest turnouts.

“It’s just a very special event,” said McConnell. She has organized the stair climb every year since it started in Baltimore in 2011, and she said in recent years there’s been more generations of people joining who weren’t alive when the terrorist attacks happened. “But they’re still coming out with friends and family to pay respects.”

Students with the The Catholic High School of Baltimore’s choir kicked off the event with songs, including the national anthem. A color guard led the procession out into the stadium’s stairways.

Hundreds of people followed close behind, and dozens of firefighters climbed the steps in their full gear. Besides the sound of bag pipes playing in the background, the stadium was mostly silent as they went up and down.

Ebbert, who has attended dozens of stair climbs in the past, said the event is an important way to teach younger generations about what happened. He said about 12% of people working for the Baltimore County Fire Department currently were on the job when 9/11 happened.

“This is an opportunity to show solidarity with the 343 firefighters who were killed on 9/11,” Ebbert said. “It’s a way to show that we will never forget them and never forget their sacrifice.”

Saturday’s stair climb is one of several events happening in Maryland throughout the week for the 25th anniversary of 9/11. Most planned tributes start on the Sept. 9 and will run through Sept. 13.

On Sunday morning, The Hope and Peace Foundation will host a 9/11 memorial walk at Towson University’s Johnny Unitas Stadium. Participants will take 2,987 steps to count for every person killed in the attacks.

Four late Towson graduates also will be honored during the event. They are Honor Elizabeth “Lizz” Wainio, who was killed aboard United Flight 93; Army Sgt. Maj. Wardell Turner, who was killed serving in Afghanistan in 2014; Army Maj. Robert “Bob” Marchanti, a Maryland National Guard officer killed in Afghanistan in 2012; and Daniel McNeal, who was working on the 104th floor of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

Of those killed in the attacks on 9/11, 69 of them were Marylanders. In 2016, The Hope and Peace Foundation created Maryland’s 9/11 Rolling Memorial that is brought to different events to remember those lost from the state.