The “eternal” flame that serves as the centerpiece of the Cmdr. Dan Shanower/Sept. 11, 2001 Memorial outside the Naperville Municipal Center went out Wednesday evening … for perhaps the 400th time since the memorial’s dedication 13 years ago.
City Public Works Director Dick Dublinski conceded “eternal” is a bit of a misnomer where the memorial’s flame is concerned, as it needs to be relighted on a regular basis.
“That darn flame goes out on us” every 10 days to two weeks “due to heavy rain and wind and vandalism,” Dublinski said.
A surveillance video camera monitors the memorial grounds. That, in turn, keeps city maintenance employees aware of when the flame has gone out, Dublinski said.
Those workers have been so diligent — and nonchalant — about keeping the flame burning that Dublinski said he didn’t know it ever went out until the Naperville Fire Department was called about a gas leak near the municipal center shortly before 7 p.m. Wednesday.
“It was news to me, too,” Dublinski said of the fact that the flame does not actually burn uninterrupted and in perpetuity.
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When he questioned city workers Thursday, they told him, “they thought it was a (non-issue,) because they would notice it had gone out and just relight it,” Dublinski said.
Deputy Fire Chief Andy Dina confirmed firefighters did a search of the municipal center campus Wednesday night and determined the gas smell a passerby reported was the result of the flame going out. Firefighters were unable to reignite it, and reported the situation to Dublinski’s staff, who had it burning again by 7:30 a.m. Thursday.
Dublinski said he expects to do research into so-called eternal flames to determine if Naperville might be able to acquire a more steadfast model.
“I’m going to start looking into it, to tell you the truth, because I’d like to have an answer for you,” he said. “Maybe somebody makes a flame that’s (designed) not to go out. I don’t know yet.”
The memorial is named for Naperville native and U.S. Navy Cmdr. Dan Shanower, who was killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the Pentagon, where he worked. More than 3,000 people died in the attacks in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania.
The flame illuminates a 48-foot-long “Wall of Faces.” The wall bears 140 images molded by local artists, representing the people killed in the attacks.
Also part of the memorial is an 11-foot-tall sculpture that incorporates relics from the attacks, including a steel beam from the World Trade Center and rubble from the Pentagon. The granite in the memorial’s base was mined in Pennsylvania, in the area where Flight 93 crashed.
Nearly $300,000 was raised over a two-year period to have the monument built.