Beam of the World Trade Center visits Huntington Beach ahead of 25th anniversary of 9/11 attacks

A 16,900-pound steel beam recovered from the rubble of the World Trade Center’s South Tower in New York made its way to Huntington Beach this week as part of the Tunnel to Towers Foundation’s nationwide tour commemorating the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

The tour launched in New York City’s Lower Manhattan on May 2, with the steel beam traveling through the country, already hitting states such as Pennsylvania, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas and Arizona, before making a stop on Friday, June 26, at SeaSalt at the Beach, a beachside restaurant in Huntington Beach, where around 500 people visited to pay their respects.

In attendance were several New York City Fire Department firefighters who were at Ground Zero as the two towers collapsed, including retired FDNY battalion chief John LaBarbera, a 12-year board member of the Tunnel to Towers Foundation.

“People seem to connect when they’re up there, and they’re touching it,” he said of the massive beam.

“There is a population out there that wasn’t born, that does not know the story,” added LaBarbera, who was a captain with Engine Company 240 in Brooklyn on 9/11 and lost two of his own men, numerous friends, and his 22-year-old cousin. “That’s where the mobile exhibit comes in, it’s an educational tool.”

The foundation was formed by the family of Stephen Siller, a 34-year-old FDNY firefighter assigned to a specialized rescue and hazmat unit, who died responding during the attacks.

According to his son, Stephen Siller, Jr., who was only 9 months old when his father died, the organization was created to ensure that his five children would not forget their father’s actions.

“They knew we were gonna grow up without him. They wanted to make sure we knew why,” said Siller Jr.

The foundation later expanded beyond 9/11 commemoration into direct aid for catastrophically injured or ill veterans and fallen first responders, providing mortgage-free homes and building customized smart homes.

Among the recipients is Scott Nokes, a 44-year-old New Jersey resident and former corporal in the United States Marine Corps who served two tours in Afghanistan before becoming a firefighter. In September 2016, Nokes was hospitalized with severe stomach issues and suspected pneumonia, went into septic shock, and woke up weeks later blind and a double amputee.

“It restores your dignity,” said Nokes, who describes the home offered to him by Frank Siller, the founder of the Tunnel to Towers Foundation, as fully ADA-compliant with roll-under counters with drawers removed, cabinets and kitchen surfaces that lower to wheelchair level, a wheelchair-height oven, a stovetop that rises and lowers, and lighted wall switches to help him navigate corners with the limited remaining vision in his left eye.

He said the home has given him back his independence while relieving the daily burden on his family.

“What happened on Sept. 11 was intended to weaken our country,” said Siller Jr., who has been present for every stop since the tour began. “So whether it’s military service, or first responders, they thought they were gonna hurt them when, really, they created a generation of people who were gonna go above and beyond, just like those men and women did on Sept. 11.”

The 83-foot tractor-trailer that carried the beam and transforms into a 1,100-square-foot exhibit, next stops at the West Los Angeles Veterans Campus at 11 a.m. on June 8, which is open to the public, and then makes two invite-only stops in Los Angeles and Simi Valley on June 30 and July 1 before heading to San Francisco. It is expected to arrive back in New York for Sept. 11.

Find out more at t2t.org.