PORT ANGELES — A 9/11 monument incorporating a piece of the fallen World Trade Center, which will be dedicated Sunday in Francis Street Park, is not a memorial, said one of the organizers.
“This is not a memorial. We’re not there to grieve,” said Alan Barnard, who organized fundraising and scheduling of the building of the new monument, which has as its centerpiece a 9-foot-long I-beam from the Twin Towers, an artifact from the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
“This is a dedication for a monument in recognition of our public safety workers — local, state and federal — and what they do to preserve our quality of life,” Barnard said Thursday.
Among the 2,753 victims who died in the attacks on the World Trade Center were 343 firefighters, 60 police officers and eight private emergency medical technicians and paramedics.
Sunday’s 45-minute ceremony to dedicate the monument will begin at 2 p.m.
There will be no seating. Parking will be on-street in the area and at Windermere at 711 E. Front St., a block away.
Volunteers have installed the 1,400-pound piece of the World Trade Center on a concrete pedestal beside an existing public safety monument that was dedicated Sept. 11, 2002.
Andrew Moravec and Sam Allen, the Coast Guardsmen who worked for two years to bring the I-beam from Ground Zero to Port Angeles, will speak about their efforts.
The ceremony will begin with the singing of the national anthem by Port Angeles city spokeswoman Teresa Pierce.
A U.S. Coast Guard flyover is planned as well as a color guard ceremony that will include the Clallam County Sheriff’s Office and Port Angeles High School NJROTC cadets.
Public safety officers — including Coast Guard Capt. Tony Hahn, commanding officer of Air Station/Sector Field Office Port Angeles, and representatives of police, fire and sheriff agencies — will speak.
Linda Dowdell of Sequim, who lived close to Ground Zero at the time of the attack, will describe that day, Barnard said.
Fire and police equipment will be on display, and the American Legion Riders, assisted by the Patriot Guard Riders, will provide a flag line.
All public safety personnel — local, state and federal — are invited in or out of uniform, and the general public is invited, Barnard said.
Barnard will tell about the development of both the original public safety monument and the new one.
“This is the completion of a 10-year dream,” said Barnard, a managing broker at Windermere Real Estate in Port Angeles.
He founded the nonprofit Public Safety Tribute Committee to create a monument in the aftermath of 9/11 when he realized that public safety workers’ efforts often went unrecognized until they died in the line of duty, he said.
When the first monument was completed in 2002, Barnard felt it was somehow unfinished.
In 2009, Moravec and Allen learned that pieces of the World Trade Center were available and brought a sketch of what a memorial could look like to Port Angeles Deputy Recreation Director Richard Bonine, asking to place it at Francis Street Park next to the existing monument dedicated to law enforcement officers.
Then, they began a two-year paperwork odyssey to bring a piece of the World Trade Center to Clallam County.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey required a nonprofit organization to accept the artifact.
The Port Angeles Fire Department Auxiliary filled that role, while Barnard revived the public safety tribute committee, of which he is the lone member, to carry out the plans.
“You’re my answer, and I think I’m your answer,” Barnard said he told the two Coast Guardsmen.
“I’d been waiting all those years for the right opportunity to finish out that park,” he said.
The I-beam arrived in Clallam County in late July and was carried on a tour of Clallam County.
The final concrete for the monument was poured Wednesday.
The monument cost $5,000, with funds donated by community members, Barnard said.
Almost all of the work was done by volunteers, leaving the cash to pay for materials.
Volunteers included Port Angeles artist Bob Stokes of Studio Bob and Gray Lucier of Lucier Studio, engineer Steve Zenovic, Alex Anderson of Alex Anderson Concrete, Jay Ketchum of Affordable Crane, Laurel Black of Laurel Black Design, Bill Roberds and the Port Angeles Rotary Club, Nor’wester Rotary, Structures to Go and the city of Port Angeles.
________
Reporter Arwyn Rice can be reached at 360-417-3535 or at arwyn.rice@peninsuladailynews.com.
