Pandemic rules mean no live family tributes at memorial
Because of pandemic precautions, the ceremony marking the 19th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attack will not include one of the most poignant parts of previous memorials — the personal messages spoken by families of victims.
In a letter to family members Friday, the National September 11 Memorial & Museum said recorded name readings from the museum’s “In Memoriam” exhibition will be used instead of having family members read the names in person.
Relatives are invited to gather on the memorial plaza in lower Manhattan for an event adhering to state and federal coronavirus pandemic safety guidelines. But “out of an abundance of caution and in line with the guidance regarding social distancing,” family members won’t give tributes on stage.
There will be six moments of silence acknowledging when each of the World Trade Center towers was struck and fell, when the Pentagon was attacked and when United Airlines Flight 93 crashed into a
Pennsylvania field.
Nearly 3,000 people were killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, attack by terrorist-piloted planes, the worst terror attack on U.S. soil.
Jim McCaffrey, whose brother-in-law, FDNY Battalion Chief Orio Palmer, was killed in the South Tower collapse, said he’s grateful the ceremony will be held at all. “If they didn’t have it this year it would give them maybe license to never have it again, which I think would be a terrible thing,” McCaffrey told Spectrum News NY1.
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