Merrick F.D. pays homage to 9/11 fallen

Ronnie Gies Sr., a New York City firefighter who served as a Merrick Fire Department chief in the early 1990s, used to bring his three boys –– Tommy, Ronnie and Bobby –– with him wherever he went, recalled Mike Abrams, a former Merrick F.D. chief, who was deputy chief under Gies.

“We had been friends a long, long time,” said Abrams minutes before the Merrick Fire Department held its annual memorial service on Friday evening to remember the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. “Ronnie knew everybody. He taught me a lot. He was fantastic. His heart and soul was in the fire department.”

A lieutenant with the FDNY’s elite Rescue Squad 288 in Queens, Gies died saving others at the Twin Towers. As people ran from the burning structures, trying desperately to escape, he hurried inside. He was killed in the towers’ collapse, as was fellow Merrick and FDNY firefighter Brian Sweeney.

Nearly 3,000 people perished in the 9/11 attacks at the World Trade Center, in Shanksville, Pa., and at the Pentagon. In all, 15 Merokeans died at the Twin Towers. (A complete list of names can be found at the bottom of this story.)

Gies’s family was among the many mourners on hand at Friday’s memorial service, held at 7 p.m. as the sun was setting over Merrick’s firefighters’ memorial, at Merrick Avenue and Sunrise Highway, beside the Long Island Rail Road station. The Merrick F.D. closed off Merrick Avenue around the train station, and roughly a hundred people, in addition to Merrick firefighters, spilled into the street for the half-hour ceremony.

Dozens of miniature American flags were planted in the ground around the memorial, which includes a statue of grieving firefighters. Cars sped by on the Sunrise, their horns occasionally blaring, while trains rattled overhead at times. The service, though, went on uninterrupted.

Gies’s three boys are now members of the Merrick Fire Department; Tommy and Ronnie joined the FDNY.