Metro West Firefighters to Get Part of Twin Towers

Metro West Fire Protection District leaders in Wildwood plan this week to pick up their coveted remnant of wreckage from the World Trade Center's twin towers.

Michael Thiemann, coordinator of community services and disaster preparedness, said he will travel with Metro West Fire Chief Vincent Loyal and Assistant Chief of Special Operations Edward Berine on Sept. 15 to secure the piece.

"We're wanting to make it, from beginning to end, a unique process," Thiemann said.

This next step adds a year-round component to the fire district's creation of the annual , a Wildwood-based 5-K run and walk to commemorate those who lost their lives on Sept. 11, 2001. The second annual Run To Remember was hosted Saturday.

twin tower remnant will be housed temporarily in the district's lobby at Station 3 in Wildwood. It is 6 feet long, 12 inches high, 9 inches wide, and weighs 180 pounds. A group of local officials, representatives of faith-based organizations, emergency responders and artists reportedly will decide how to display it in a future memorial.

Thiemann said it was an honor to submit a proposal for the piece. Managers of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey are overseeing proposals, which came from several thousand entities.

He also said the remnant they receive will not be altered.

"This entire facility didn't go away, it didn't get buried, it didn't get put somewhere else," he said in an interview with the Suburban Journals. "These artifacts are going out to agencies that will remember it and the lives that were lost with it."