ST. JOHNS COUNTY, Fla. — Twenty-four years after the September 11th terror attacks, three retired New York City firefighters now living in St. Johns County say the heartbreak of that day never fades.
Their voices still carry the accents of New York, and their hearts still carry the weight of 9/11.
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<
“It does not get easier. There are different emotions that come up every year,” said Lt. Robert Aponte, retired FDNY firefighter.
Jerry Durkin showed Action News Jax his old uniform inside the St. Augustine Fire Department.
It’s still covered in dust from Ground Zero. He says sometimes, it’s too painful to even look at.
“A lot of good friends… firemen. This is one of the reasons I gave it to them, because sometimes I can’t look at it,” Durkin said.
For Durkin, the loss was deeply personal. His sister-in-law was inside the World Trade Center that morning.
[DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks]
“My mother-in-law called me at 8 a.m. that day and said Suzanne is in the World Trade Center. I had been in the ’93 terrorist bombing. As soon as I saw the plane, I knew it was a terrorist attack,” he said.
He still wears a bracelet in her memory.
John Westfield carries his own reminder: a shard of glass recovered from the site.
“We arrived on scene maybe 10 minutes before the North Tower collapsed,” Westfield recalled.“I look at it and I think maybe somebody was looking through it, looking for help, trapped in those upper floors possibly.”
Aponte says more than 50 retired New York City firefighters now live in St. Johns County. Together, they hope their stories will keep alive the motto born out of 9/11: Never forget.
“I fear that people might be forgetting,” Westfield said.
The city of St. Augustine will hold its annual Ceremony of Remembrance tomorrow to honor the lives lost on September 11, 2001.
[SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter]
Click here to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here to stream Action News Jax live.
