Artifacts of 9/11 pass through Moses Lake

MOSES LAKE - When it was serving its intended purpose, the steel-reinforced pillar was a utilitarian object, one of many supports in an urban parking garage. Nothing special. It gained an entirely new meaning on Sept. 11, 2001.

MOSES LAKE - When it was serving its intended purpose, the steel-reinforced pillar was a utilitarian object, one of many supports in an urban parking garage. Nothing special. It gained an entirely new meaning on Sept. 11, 2001.

"It was the floor and ceiling of a parking garage in Tower 2" of the World Trade Center, Tom Guttu, of the Mercer Island Fire Department, said. The weight of the collapsing tower destroyed the garage, but the steel pillar remained intact.

It took months to clean the debris from the site, and some was separated and stored in a warehouse at JFK Airport. Those pieces were donated, mostly to civic agencies, including fire houses, artist John Sisko said. "A high priority was given to fire departments," he said.

The Mercer Island Fire Department is building a new station, and they wanted a memorial to the people - the firefighters, people working in and visiting the towers, police officers - who died that day, and to all firefighters who died in the line of duty. Sisko and artistic partner Jim Brown requested and received some of the debris, and the pieces came through Moses Lake Thursday morning.

The truck carrying the pieces stopped at the Moses Lake Fire Department, and was escorted out of town by a department engine. The truck has been on the road for about seven days, Denis Gray, of Sumner's Denis Gray Trucking, said. The company hauled the pieces cross-country.

Denis Gray had family in lower Manhattan that day - one niece was in a tower when it was hit, and escaped. Another niece saw a section of airplane landing gear come through her office window, he said.

The steel pillar was shipped to a location in the Bronx and cut in half, Sisko said, as part of the design. Then the pieces, 33,000 pounds of concrete and steel, were loaded on the truck. They started west about a week ago, Gray said.

The truck and its drivers stopped at fire houses along the way, Gray said, Moses Lake being the last before Mercer Island. The trip has been emotional sometimes, he said. "Very touching."

The truck received an escort from Washington State Patrol troopers when it came across the Washington-Idaho border, Gray said. "They (the troopers) said they even got emotional doing it," he said. The caravan stopped at a Spokane firehouse and attracted the attention of firefighters in town for a convention, he said. Football players in Moses Lake for the East-West All-Star Game stopped their activities to come by for a look and to take some pictures.

Sisko said the two pieces of the pillar will form a "gateway" representing the towers, and will focus the view, both within and without, on the fire station.