You can climb 110 flights of stairs on Saturday morning at Columbia’s Hearnes Center, as part of the 10th annual Columbia Memorial Stair Climb.
The event honors those who died during the September 11, 2001 terror attacks. Columbia memorial stair climb director Ryan Benedict of the Boone County Fire Protection District tells 939 the Eagle that Saturday’s participants will climb the equivalent of the 110 stories of the World Trade Center. He says they’ll enter the east side of the Hearnes Center:
“We’ll make like a horseshoe around the building (Hearnes Center), start the climb on the west side and we’ll go up and down the bleachers. We close off some of the narrower stairs just to make sure everyone stays safe. But we will do a complete lap and a half around the stadium and that’s where we rack up 110 flights of stairs,” Mr. Benedict says.
Columbia’s Hearnes Center will be packed with first responders and civilians for Saturday’s 10th annual Columbia Memorial Stair Climb. Mr. Benedict tells 939 the Eagle that the opening ceremony will be emotional with bagpipes and with a trumpet player performing Taps. He says Saturday’s climb begins at 8:30 am:
“Whenever it gets to the time when the first plane hit the first building we have a fire truck outside that does three short horn blasts. In the fire service that signifies evacuation tones. So the goose bumps will stand up on every firefighter in there,” he says.
The climb was established to honor the 343 New York firefighters, 70 law enforcement officers and 9 EMS professionals who were killed on 9-11. Saturday’s opening ceremony at the Hearnes Center begins at 8 am.
