Grand Isle firefighters, local police mark 9/11 anniversary with brief memorial
MILTON/SOUTH HERO – Members of the Grand Isle Fire Department and several Northwest Vermont police departments gathered at the sandbar on Friday morning to hold a brief ceremony marking the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
The group of local responders met near the memorial at the causeway connecting Milton and South Hero for two moments of silence and salutes in honor of victims from the Sept. 11 attacks. Each salute was scheduled to coincide with the collapse of one of the Twin Towers at New York City’s World Trade Center after they were struck by hijacked aircraft on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001.
According to the Grand Isle Fire Department’s Adam White, whose department hosted Friday’s memorial ceremony with several police departments, it was significant for the local emergency services providers to memorialize the first responders who died trying to rescue victims during the 2001 attacks.
“It’s important to remember those first responders who made the ultimate sacrifice,” White, the Grand Isle Fire Department’s chief, told The Islander. “Every firefighter thinks about those who gave their lives going inside to help others.”
“To me, it’s a remembrance of loss, and of service and safety in our country,” Ray Allen, the sheriff for Grand Isle County, added. “It’s about supporting public safety personnel at a time when there was a tragic loss for public safety.”
Nearly 3,000 people died in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, which targeted the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and included the crash of a hijacked plane in Pennsylvania.
Among the victims were 441 emergency services personnel, including firefighters, paramedics and police officers who responded to the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York.
Participating emergency responders on Friday included volunteer firefighters from Grand Isle and police officers from the Grand Isle County Sheriff’s Department, the Colchester Police Department, the Milton Police Department and the Vermont State Police.
The Vermont Agency of Transportation, which maintains a permanent memorial to the Sept. 11 attacks on the South Hero causeway, also participated, parking a second, mobile memorial on the sandbar.
Photos by Michael Frett, Islander Staff Writer