Cape store honored with 9/11 memento

Jack Carter is a traveling man, and on Wednesday, his travels took him to Holloway Carpet One in Cape Girardeau.

Carter, a retired New York firefighter who pitched in at ground zero Sept. 11, 2001, volunteers for the Stephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Foundation. He swung by the store at 831 S. Kingshighway to recognize Eugene Holloway Jr. for supporting the foundation's Building for America's Bravest program -- and to give Holloway and his family part of a steel beam from the wreckage of the World Trade Center.

"We were looking for a need for veterans," Holloway said, "so we donate $10 of every job (to the program)."

Carpet One stores all over the country participate in the organization's efforts.

The family of firefighter Stephen Siller began the foundation after he and others died trying to lend aid at ground zero.

Jack Carter

Siller, a father of five, had been on his way to play golf when he got stuck in the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel and heard about the chaos at the World Trade Center on his police scanner.

So he strapped on 60 pounds of gear and ran all the way to the site of the Twin Towers.

Building for America's Bravest constructs special "smart" homes for catastrophically wounded service members returning from combat.

Some of the homes' amenities include kitchen cabinets that can lower to wheelchair level, automatic doors and lighting or window blinds that can close by themselves.

To qualify for the half-million-dollar homes, recipients have to be missing at least two limbs. But recipients often are missing three or even four, Holloway said.

Eugene Holloway Jr.

"We've got a waiting list," he added. "I hate to think of how deep it is."

For Carter's part, this was his second time honoring a Carpet One store for its involvement in the foundation's work. Most of the time, he travels to disaster zones to lend a hand, most recently taking part in relief efforts for North Carolina flood victims.

"Matter of fact, I was in Joplin for the tornado," he said, referring to the disaster in southwest Missouri in 2011.

Carter retired in 1994 as a first-class firefighter from a station in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City. As the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks were unfolding, he was at a casino in Connecticut. He didn't know what had happened until a woman on the ferry back to New York told him about the mayhem unfolding in the city.

So although the towers collapsed that morning, Carter didn't arrive at his old fire station until about 4 p.m. From there, he went to ground zero to help unearth victims buried under the rubble.

"You get on your knees and dig with your hands," he recalled. "That's all you could do."

ljones@semissourian.com

(573) 388-3652

Pertinent address: 831 S. Kingshighway, Cape Girardeau