PORT ANGELES — Nearly 200 attended ceremonies Sunday to honor public safety personnel at an emotional 9/11 dedication ceremony for a monument containing a piece of Ground Zero.
The monument, completed last week, features a nine-foot I-beam that once was part of the World Trade Center.
The crowd gave a thunderous ovation to dozens uniformed safety personnel who attended the event.
“We welcome you here today to honor you for the work you do every day,” said Alan Barnard, organizer of the event and the monument.
The ceremony was held under sparkling blue skies, in wedge-shaped Francis Street Park overlooking Port Angeles Harbor.
American Legion and Patriot Guard honor guard riders formed an avenue of flags at the entrance to the park at the north end of Francis Street.
Three flags hung at half-staff over a 9-foot chunk of metal that emerges from a concrete block like a sword in a stone, tilted to one side as if it just fell there.
Aside from the iconic images of 9/11 destruction, there are other images that are important to that day, said Tim Richards, Clallam County sheriff’s chaplain.
“There were the emotions seen on the faces of firefighters rushing into the buildings as panicked people rushed out,” Richards said.
There were also the expressions on the police officers who helped carry victims from the buildings, and on the faces of the medical personnel who treated victims, he said.
Port Angeles Police Chief Terry Gallagher, representing law enforcement agencies in Clallam County, said the deaths of the firefighters and police officers on Sept. 11, 2001, was not a loss but a gift, Gallagher said.
“They gave their lives that day,” he said.
“They were willing to give to you something that was precious to them, a deliberate act,” he said.
Port Angeles Fire Chief Dan McKeen represented fire and rescue units in the county.
The emotions that unfolded in the weeks that followed the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, D.C., made McKeen proud to be a Port Angeles resident, he said.
“When significant things happen, we as a country, we as a nation come together,” he said.
Linda Dowdell of Sequim, who lived less than a mile from Ground Zero at the time of the attack, shared her experiences.
Dowdell and her husband were fortunate to be home together when it happened, she said.
“We weren’t out there breathing dust and glass,” she said.
They weren’t out putting up posters, looking for each other, and none of their friends were killed, though one had a close call, having left the World Trade Center 10 minutes before the first plane hit.
They tried to donate blood, but when they got to the hospital they learned there was no need — there were too few survivors, she said.
Coast Guard Capt. Tony Hahn, commanding officer of Air Station/Sector Field Office Port Angeles, represented federal agencies in Clallam County.
“Ten years ago today, we lost more than 2,900 people in a horrific attack against our country,” Hahn said
“Their deaths were not in vain, for in their lives we find the inspiration to live, the strength to carry on, and the compassion to care,” Hahn said.
Two Coast Guard petty officers who were responsible for bringing the I-beam from the New York Port Authority yard in New Jersey to Port Angeles spoke of their two-year mission.
In 2009, Andrew Moravec and Samuel Allen read in the Peninsula Daily News that pieces of the World Trade Center were available and began a two-year paperwork odyssey to bring the item to Clallam County.
“It took a long time to understand why we did it,” Moravec said.
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Reporter Arwyn Rice can be reached at 360-417-3535 or at arwyn.rice@peninsuladailynews.com.
