Genelle Guzman-McMillan, the last person pulled alive from the World Trade Center rubble, will speak in Palm Harbor on Friday. The 25th-anniversary ceremony takes place at Curlew Hills Memory Gardens, 1750 Curlew Road.

Event marks 25 years since the attacks

The event will feature flyovers, honor guards, live music and additional speakers, according to a Curlew Hills event listing.

She was the last person pulled from the rubble

Guzman-McMillan was working on the 64th floor of the North Tower on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. She and her co-workers began evacuating after the South Tower started collapsing. They made it only to the 13th-floor stairwell before the North Tower fell, according to Fox 29 Philadelphia. She was trapped under the debris for 27 hours.

Rescuers reached her after 27 hours trapped

Rescuers eventually reached her. Speaking at a Sept. 11, 2025, commemoration at Camden County College in New Jersey, Guzman-McMillan recalled the moment: "Miraculous thing happened. My right hand being there, someone grabbed me by my hands and they called me by my name …"

She resumed her old job after recovering

She spent nearly three months in the hospital. She had surgery on her right leg four times, Fox 29 reported. She still works at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, where she was employed before the attacks. In 2010, she published a memoir, "Angel in the Rubble."

Memorial holds a piece of the World Trade Center

The Curlew Hills 9/11 memorial, built in 2012, features a twisted piece of steel from the World Trade Center, according to the cemetery's website. Fox 13 Tampa Bay described it in 2022 as Florida's largest permanent 9/11 memorial. That year's ceremony drew about 2,000 people.

In prior years, the ceremony has started at 10 a.m. and included helicopter flyovers from the U.S. Coast Guard and the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office. Honor guards from Palm Harbor Fire Rescue and the Sheriff's Office have also participated, Fox 13 reported.

The memorial has also featured two giant beams of light shining more than 1,000 feet into the sky on the evenings of Sept. 10 and Sept. 11 in past years. Whether the light display will return for the 2026 ceremony has not been announced.

How to find full event details

Residents can contact Curlew Hills at 727-789-2000 or visit CurlewHills.com for the full schedule and event details.