Bellmore F.D. unveils 9/11 monument

The first thing that Mary Ann Rand noticed about the Bellmore Fire Department’s newest monument was a row of bolts.

On the left side of the rusted steel beam, most of the bolts bend down toward the ground near the department’s flag pole. But some of the bolts that held the bar in place in the former World Trade Center curl up toward the sky.

The twisted metal, Rand said, reminded her of what happened to her son, Adam, and nearly 3,000 others on Sept. 11, 2001. “It brought it home –– how the buildings came down and the immensity of it,” she said. “It will remind everyone of the people who died under that steel.”

Eleven years later, Rand, other 9/11 family members and Bellmore Fire Department volunteers took part in a ceremony on Sept. 11 to dedicate the World Trade Center beam as a monument at department headquarters.

Vincent Scaduto, the department’s public information officer, said that First Assistant Chief Christopher O'Brien and Commissioner Matthew O'Connor worked for over a year to bring a piece of the World Trade Center to Bellmore. Family members of the three New York City firefighters and Bellmore volunteers who died in the aftermath of the attacks –– Rand, Kevin Prior and Sean McCarthy –– were invited to lay flowers at the foot of the beam during the ceremony.

Gerard Prior laid a wreath for his son, Kevin, who, like Rand, died while attempting to help victims trapped in the burning twin towers.

Tara Donlon represented her brother, McCarthy, who died of cancer in 2008 after developing health problems because he breathed contaminated air at ground zero. Donlon said that she and Sean came from a family of 12 children, several of whom are firefighters.

Mary Ann Rand said that McCarthy and her son were both kind people and close friends.

McCarthy, a man who Donlon said “would go out of his way for anyone,” died at age 36. His sister said the presence of the steel beam in Bellmore would keep him and the other victims in residents’ hearts in the future.

“It’s like a little piece of them is here,” Donlon said. “Hopefully, people will stop and think when they walk past.”