Firefighters bring World Trade Center beam to Edmonds for memorial
Published 10:04 pm Tuesday, December 6, 2011
EDMONDS — The 1-ton piece of metal — twisted, rusted and bent — arrived in Edmonds Tuesday accompanied by a motorcade of firefighters and police.
There was a somber mood as the steel girder passed on a trailer along its route into town. It was then raised, by crane, onto a wheeled cart for the ceremony. This piece of 9/11 history will be part of a memorial at the Fallen Firefighter Memorial Park at Fire Station 17 in downtown Edmonds.
More than 100 people, including many firefighters and police officers, gathered outside the fire station.
“This piece serves as a dose of harsh reality of what happened,” Edmonds Mayor Dave Earling said. “A piece of that is now here in our city.”
Like hundreds of other treasured pieces of twisted heavy steel, the 8-foot artifact made its trip from Hangar 17 at New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport after being pulled from the rubble of the World Trade Center.
FedEx arranged to fly the I-beam section to Seattle and firefighter Dave Erickson of Fire District 1 traveled home with it.
“This has renewed my faith in humanity,” Erickson said. “So many have done so much.”
Earling said the object brought back the horror of the Sept. 11 attacks.
“All of us remember where we were on that day,” Earling said. “The one positive thing was that we found a time in our history to unite.”
This is the second steel beam brought back by fire departments to Snohomish County. In August, hundreds of people in Arlington showed up to cheer the firefighters when they rolled into town with the boxed-up 13-foot girder on a borrowed trailer.
Arlington Fire Chief Bruce Stedman said volunteer committees are continuing to work on the design and fundraising for a sculptural monument to hold Arlington’s piece of what was the World Trade Center. The memorial monument is to be constructed in 2012 just outside Firehouse 46 in downtown Arlington.
The piece in Edmonds is being housed in a bay at Fire Station 17 until the memorial can be constructed, hopefully by Sept. 11, 2012.
To fund the construction of the memorial Fire One Foundation is raffling a hand blown glass helmet by local glass artist Dimitri Michelides. The drawing will be Feb. 7, 2012. Tickets are $50, checks only, include a contact phone number and order them through Fire 1 Foundation, P.O. Box 12915, Everett, WA 98206-2915.
Herald reporter Gale Fiege contributed to this story.
