Merrick F.D. salutes 9/11 heroes

Dressed in a black blouse and blue jeans, Carol Gies stood silently on Tuesday morning, her chin in her hands, her elbows resting on a crane that was lifting a twisted World Trade Center girder into the parking lot at the Merrick Fire Department’s Friendship Engine and Hose Company.

Gies, who lost her husband, Ronnie, in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, looked forlorn.

Seeing two World Trade Center beams delivered to Merrick “is tough,” Gies later said. “It’s a lot harder than I thought … It just hurts so much.”

The beams, which were brought by flatbed truck to Merrick from Kennedy Airport’s Hangar 17, will serve as centerpieces for two 9/11 memorials, one in downtown Merrick, off Sunrise Highway, and the other at the Friendship Company, off Meadowbrook Road –– where Ronnie Gies once served as Merrick Fire Department chief.

Two Merrick volunteer firefighters died while trying to save others at the World Trade Center nearly 10 years ago –– Gies and Brian Sweeney. In all, 15 Merokeans were killed that terrible day.

In 2009, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which is charge of all 9/11 artifacts, began giving away World Trade Center beams to fire departments and schools to serve as memorials. In September 2010, the Bellmore-Merrick Central High School District dedicated a girder at the Brookside School in North Merrick.

John Fabian, a former Merrick Fire Department chief, led the two-year effort to bring two more beams to the community. Fabian said the new 9/11 memorials will help “future firefighters realize what happened that day –– history.”

Bobby Gies, 23, Ronnie and Carol’s youngest son, said, “It’s a very special tribute to be able to bring back steel.” Both of his brothers –– Tommy and Ronnie Jr. –– are New York City firefighters. Bobby is waiting to enter the city fire academy.

Ron Luparello, a former Merrick Fire Department chief, was reflective on Tuesday. “Is it a way to grieve? Is it a way to remember what happened?” he said of the effort to bring the World Trade Center beams to Merrick. “If you’ve never been down [to ground zero], now you see a piece of it. It makes it real.”

Luparello added that seeing the rusted beams, still partly covered in gray dust, brought a rush of memories back. Luparello was at ground zero in the weeks after the attacks, on a security detail, while volunteers sifted through the rubble, part of a massive search party looking at first for survivors, then for the dead.

“I just remember the devastation,” Luparello said. “This brings back the photographic pictures of what you saw.”

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