At Dallas’ 15th memorial stair climb, an FDNY veteran who lost his brother and cousin stood with North Texas firefighters — including some born after the attacks — as they carried the dead 110 floors.
By Michael Cuviello
Dallas Morning News
https://www.dallasnews.com/
Some weren’t born on 9/11. Now they climb 110 floors to honor those who died.
Gustavo Rubio wasn’t alive when terrorists attacked the United States on Sept. 11, 2001.
Yet 25 years later, what happened that morning is part of the reason he became a firefighter.
Rubio, a firefighter-paramedic with Denton County Emergency Services District No. 1, joined nearly 500 first responders Saturday for the Dallas 9/11 Memorial Stair Climb, climbing the equivalent of the World Trade Center towers’ 110 floors.
“The fact that I wasn’t alive and we still remember this event, it’s super important,” Rubio said. “I make sure to pay tribute to them.”
The 15th annual climb brought firefighters, police officers and emergency medical personnel to Comerica Bank Tower in downtown Dallas six days before the 25th anniversary of the attacks.
Many climbed in heavy protective gear. Each carried the photograph and name of a responder being honored.
Some climbers remembered exactly where they were when the towers were struck. Others watched as children.
And some, like Rubio, had not yet been born.
Shafkat Anowar, The Dallas Morning News, Michael Cuviello
A quarter-century later, the climb has become not only a memorial, but a way of passing those memories to people who have none of their own.
Lauren Sanchez, event director for the climb and emergency management coordinator for the Duncanville Fire Department, said organizers also open the ceremony to the public to help preserve an understanding of what happened.
“We put it on for them, but we also open it up to the public so that we can educate them and make sure that everybody understands the significance of what happened on that day,” Sanchez said.
The ceremony began at Main Street Garden before climbers entered Comerica Bank Tower. The climb started at 8:47 a.m., immediately after a moment of silence marking the time American Airlines Flight 11 struck the North Tower.
Additional pauses during the morning corresponded with other major moments from Sept. 11. Inside the building, participants completed three climbing legs to reach 110 floors. At the end, they rang a bell for the responder they carried and placed that person’s name on a memorial board.
“They wear that badge around their neck with the picture and the name of the responder,” Sanchez said. “When the towers came down, they’re carrying that person to the top.”
Remembering the day firsthand
The ceremony also brought a firsthand voice from New York. Joseph “JoJo” Esposito, a 42-year FDNY veteran who spent 26 years with Rescue Company 5, served as the keynote speaker.
Esposito arrived at the World Trade Center as the second tower was collapsing. Around him, the movement was going in two directions.
“People were running out. Guys were running in,” he said.
Esposito said firefighters entering the disaster understood what the job could demand.
“We went in knowing that we might not be coming back out,” he said.
For Esposito, the losses were intensely personal.
“I lost my brother. I lost my cousin. I lost 11 members of my company, and hundreds of friends,” Esposito said.
As the day went on, he tried reaching the people he knew.
“I’m calling for my brother, I’m calling for our guys and not getting answers,” Esposito said.
Twenty-five years later, Esposito said the names carried through the Dallas stairwell represent individual lives, not simply a number associated with the attacks.
“Every one of those names has a story behind it that they carry, and they do it proudly,” he said.
Carrying the memory forward
Rubio carried Dennis O’Berg, an FDNY firefighter assigned to Ladder 105 who was only weeks out of the Fire Academy when he died. That detail resonated with Rubio, who has been with his department for less than three years.
“He was just the new guy,” Rubio said. “I was the new guy a couple years ago.”
Saturday was Rubio’s second climb. He said the event gives firefighters born after Sept. 11 a way to understand a history they never experienced themselves.
“For those that are younger than me or the same age that weren’t there for that day, it just keeps this memory of these gentlemen who lost their lives alive,” Rubio said.
What the climb asks of them
For Mesquite Fire Chief Keith Hopkins, Saturday was about returning for one final climb. Hopkins had completed the Dallas event six times before kidney disease worsened and interrupted his participation.
About a year ago, he received a kidney transplant. Then he began training to come back for the 25th anniversary.
“This is kind of my redemption tour,” Hopkins said.
He was coming off shift when the planes struck the towers in 2001.
“It’s just a day that I think for all of us is seared into our minds,” Hopkins said. “A day that we promised we would never forget, and we’re not going to forget it.”
He trained for months for Saturday’s climb, reminding himself that “this is not supposed to be easy.” The kidney transplant, Hopkins said, gave him a different perspective on the time he has been given.
“I’m in overtime,” he said, “getting to do fun things that I wouldn’t have been able to do otherwise.”
James Purdom, a captain with the Grand Prairie Fire Department, carried his own memories of Sept. 11 into the stairwell. Purdom estimated Saturday was about his 10th Dallas climb. He remembered returning from a call on Sept. 11 and turning on the television at his station.
He watched the first World Trade Center tower fall.
“I don’t know how many of my brothers just died, along with all the civilians that were in that,” Purdom remembered thinking.
At the time, Purdom was working as a paramedic in Amarillo. Later that day, while transporting a patient, he saw so many people trying to donate blood that the line near the blood center backed up traffic.
“Just the overall impact of people helping people really motivated me to just keep on trying to remember and keep that alive,” he said.
Years of climbing have also given Purdom a physical appreciation for what firefighters faced inside the towers.
He was exhausted when he spoke Saturday. But there was no smoke. No fire overhead. No stream of civilians trying to descend while firefighters pushed upward.
“I’m tired right now, and I’m under zero stress,” Purdom said. “There’s no fire burning over the top of me.”
That makes it difficult for him to comprehend the conditions firefighters faced that morning.
“It’s just amazing to me that those guys got as high as they did under those conditions,” he said.
Passing it forward
The climb also brought together two generations of one North Texas firefighting family. McKinney Fire Chief Paul Dow climbed for the first time alongside his son, Ryan, a Lewisville firefighter.
Paul Dow has spent 30 years in the fire service. His son is near the beginning of his career. Saturday gave them something else to share.
“I’ve been thinking about, dreaming about this moment for many years,” Paul Dow said. “I’ll never fight a fire with him at different departments, but this is a shared sacrifice that we can experience together.”
Ryan put it more simply.
“You’ve got to do something hard together,” he said.
Across the tower Saturday, that generational handoff repeated itself. Some climbers carried memories of Sept. 11 up the stairs. Others carried stories passed down to them.
Rubio carried the name of a firefighter who died before Rubio was born. He put on his gear anyway. Then he started climbing.
“Let’s never forget this day,” Rubio said. “Let’s keep honoring them every single year.”
Breaking News Reporter
Michael Cuviello is a breaking news reporter for The Dallas Morning News. He previously reported for the Amarillo Globe-News, where he led on-the-ground coverage of the Smokehouse Creek fire, the largest wildfire in Texas history. A graduate of the University of Texas at El Paso, he served as the sports editor for the student publication, The Prospector. Cuviello is a combat veteran who served more than a decade in the military.
This story, originally published in The Dallas Morning News, is reprinted as part of a collaborative partnership between The Dallas Morning News and Texas Metro News. The partnership seeks to boost coverage of Dallas’ communities of color, particularly in southern Dallas.
