On the 13th anniversary of 9/11, an Orange County Fire Authority firefighter continued his annual tradition of honoring the victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks with a large memorial outside his Fullerton home.
Scott Townley placed thousands of American flags and hundreds of crosses in the front yard of his home at 863 North Woods Avenue (map) in remembrance of the somber day.
The crosses represent the 343 firefighters and 74 police officers who perished that day trying to save lives, while the flags represent the civilians who were killed, he told KTLA.
Townley’s 9/11 memorial initially started just days after the attacks. He said he wanted to do something to honor his fellow firefighters and the civilians who died in the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and in the four hijacked planes that day.
“Inspiration for this was originally, after the towers fell in 2001, was to honor the victims of 9/11 and what happened. I’m a firefighter, so the firefighters that we lost on that day, we’re a brotherhood,” he said. “So I wanted to memorialize them, along with all the civilians that were lost that day.”
The memorial in the front yard has grown bigger each year, and Townley keeps adding something special so people will not forget the day of the attacks.
For the 10th anniversary, he handmade all of the crosses and flags and got each one of them personalized with the person’s name and where they died.
This year, he added a memorial wall dedicated to the service members who were killed in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The memorial, which was put up on Sept. 6, will be taken down Friday, according to Townley.
“It’s all been a personal conviction, a personal tribute of mine to the victims of 9/11,” he said.
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