COLUMBIA, S.C. — Every year since the Sept. 11 attacks, fire departments in South Carolina and New York participate in the Tunnel to Towers run together.
The relationship between the two departments did not just start after 9/11 — it was established back in the Civil War when Ladder 101 in Brooklyn raised money and gave the Columbia (S.C.) Fire Department a modern hose carriage.
The carriage was a gift after a fire destroyed a third of the city in 1865 and residents used buckets filled with water to fight the flames, WIStv reported.
“Bucket brigade was really only useful when a fire was in its smaller stages and as they get bigger, you start looking at the history as fire apparatus got bigger it took more men to operate that,” Irmo Fire Chief Mike Sonefeld said. “They were heavier and as they got there they couldn’t do anything because they were completely out of breath from pulling a steam engine.”
Columbia promised to repay the debt of gratitude if an occasion should ever arise. And it did, 134 years later, after Sept. 11, 2001.
A fire station in N.Y. lost seven of its members and a ladder truck. Students of White Knoll Middle School and fire stations throughout Columbia raised money to send Ladder 101 in Brooklyn a new fire truck, according to the report.
“It was hundreds of millions of dollars of fire equipment that they lost that day,” Chief Sonefeld said. “We just targeted one area we knew, that was Ladder 101 in Brooklyn, and knew what their need was, got the specifications, said, ‘All right, we’ll adopt this station, their needs.’ With everything else they had going on that was one less thing on their plate.”