World Trade Center beam coming to Kansas City
A steel beam weighing more than eight tons and recovered from the World Trade Center’s South Tower will roll into Kansas City on Aug. 5. This physical reminder of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks is hosted by the National WWI Museum and Memorial.
The public welcome begins at 11 a.m. on the museum’s South Plaza. Admission is free.
The 21-foot, 16,900-pound beam is crossing the country aboard a flatbed truck as part of the Tunnel to Towers Foundation’s Steel Across America tour. The 10,500-mile journey has complted 18 stops so far, including San Diego, Seattle and Denver, before heading down I-7- for a stop in St. Louis and six additional stops before returning to New York on Sept. 11, the 25th anniversary of the attacks.
“We wanted to make sure the foundation did something important, significant,” foundation Chairman and CEO Frank Siller told Fox News. “We want to make sure America remembers what happened 25 years ago when we lost 2,977 lives.”
For Siller’s family, the steel carries a more personal weight. His brother, New York City firefighter Stephen Siller, ran through the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel carrying his gear after learning the towers had been struck. He died at the World Trade Center, and his remains were never found.
“My father’s body was never recovered, so who he is ingrained in that steel,” Stephen Siller Jr., who is helping carry the beam across the country, told the New York Post.
A traveling 9/11 museum also will be open from noon to 8 p.m. Aug. 5 and from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Aug. 6. The exhibit includes artifacts, documentary footage and first-responder radio recordings.
The Kansas City Symphony will perform at 7 p.m. Aug. 5. Taps and a pipe-and-drum tribute will follow later that evening, according to the National WWI Museum and Memorial.
–Metro Voice
#September11 #NeverForget #KansasCity #TunnelToTowers
