I wrote this story in the 72 hours following 9-11-2001. It was published in Westsylvania magazine as the usual Kidsylvania article in December/February 2001-2002. The article was illustrated with photos of the memorial that quickly started in Shanksville in those first few days after the attacks and with historical photos explaining the 1889 Johnstown Flood.
[In those emotionally-charged days, Editor Dave Hurst added this note when the article was originally published: The events of September 11, 2001 made Westsylvanians witnesses to history. Because of the impact of that day, and its link to the region, we have chosen to put the event into some historical perspective for our young readers. We recommend that children under the age of 12 read this article with an adult.]
Every day, firefighters, police officers, soldiers and other put on their uniforms and go to work. They know that before the end of the day they may be called to save a life – or give their own lives. They are our everyday heroes.
But every once in a while, ordinary people find themselves in situations they never imagined, and they, too, perform heroically. These are the unexpected heroes, and we have seen their bravery and sacrifice in Westsylvania.
Late May is a magical time. The new leaves on the trees bring green back to the mountains. Wildflowers fill the fields with pink, purple, yellow and white blossoms. Garden tools, packets of seeds and plants wait on the porch until the last frost has passed. There is color everywhere.
On May 31, 1889, Westsylvanians could not believe their eyes. On that day 112 years ago, a dam on the South Fork of the Little Conemaugh River broke, sending 20 million tons of water down the river to Johnstown. The flood killed more than 2,200 people. Our nation was horrified by the destruction of a mountain city in Pennsylvania.
Early September is a wonderful time in the mountains. The deep green of the forest is fringed with bits of red and yellow. Fields are filled with acres of goldenrod. Back porches and kitchen windowsills are crowded with tomatoes and zucchini. There is color everywhere.
On September 11, 2001, Americans were shocked by the destruction of the World Trade Center towers in New York City and the damage at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. As many as 5,000 people were thought to have been killed. It all seemed far away until United Flight 93 crashed near Shanksville, about 18 miles by air from the remnants of the South Fork Dam.
The evening of May 30, 1889, Colonel Elias Unger watched as the rain fell and the water rose in Lake Conemaugh behind the dam. The next morning the Colonel and his workers tried to remove debris from a spillway that was clogged, to get the water flowing around the dam again, but the water was rising too quickly. Frantically, they rushed across the dam with their picks and shovels to dig a new spillway at the other end. Before long they realized they couldn’t dig fast enough.
About 11 o’clock, Colonel Unger sent John Parke to warn people who lived downstream from the dam of the danger. John rode his horse as fast as he could toward the town of South Fork, a few miles below the dam. John knew the people of Johnstown also had to be warned. Determined, he worked his way to the nearest telegraph office.
As United Flight 93 took off from Newark, N.J., the passengers and crew settled in for the five-hour flight to San Francisco. Their take-off had been delayed for 40 minutes, but now they were finally on their way. The flight attendants moved through the aisles, serving breakfast to the 37 passengers scattered about the big plane.
About an hour into the trip, the pleasant flight changed suddenly. Air traffic controllers were the first to suspect that something was wrong. As they watched their radar screens, the plane made several sharp turns. By this time, reports of the attacks at the World Trade Center in New York were starting to come in.
On board Flight 93, four men had taken over the plane. Their plan was simple: Hijack a plane and crash it into an American landmark, killing as many people as possible. Their plan would soon be figured out by the ordinary people on board, who were hearing about the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks on their cell phones.
In 1889 there were no cell phones. In fact, most places in Westsylvania did not even have telephones yet. People relied on the telegraph for vital communication. Emma Ehrenfeld slogged through the swampy streets of South Fork to her job at the telegraph office. Her job was hard that day because the storm had knocked down poles and wires. She was getting ready for lunch when a man burst in, very excited. He told her that the dam was in danger of breaking.
But what could Emma do? All the direct wires from her office to Johnstown were down. She later said, “I thought I would do the best I could.” She called the operator at Mineral Point, a small town between South Fork and Johnstown. The operator there still had a connection to Johnstown. Together, they crafted a message and sent it to Johnstown.
The message finally made it to Hettie Ogle at the Western Union office in Johnstown. At 3 o’clock, she tapped out her last telegram: “The dam is becoming dangerous and may possibly go.” Fifteen minutes later, the dam broke. Hettie was still at her post an hour later when the terrible wave reached Johnstown. Her body was found with her telegraph equipment.
Up the valley, locomotive engineer John Hess was at the controls of his engine. He heard a sound unlike any he’d ever heard before. Later, he described it as “a roar and a crash and a smash.” He knew he had to do something.
As he put the locomotive in motion toward Johnstown, he tied down the cord of the steam whistle, letting out a loud, shrill blast that continued to blare as he guided the speeding locomotive into the city, just ahead of the flood. He hoped the sound of the whistle would alert people to the danger. He said, “I didn’t know what else to do; I didn’t see what else I could do.”
Several passengers on Flight 93 called family and friends; another called 911. Todd Beamer picked up a phone and reached Lisa Jefferson, a supervisor at GTE, the company that operated the phones on the plane. He told her what was happening; she told him what had happened in New York. Passenger Tom Burnett called his wife, Deena, in California. He asked her to call someone for help. When they hung up, Deena called 911 and was put in contact with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Tom and Deena spoke together three more times. Deena told Tom about the attacks in New York. Another passenger, Jeremy Glick, had called his wife, Lyzbeth. He, too, learned of the New York attack from his wife.
Jeremy, Todd, Tom and other passengers knew that the hijackers intended to use Flight 93 as a guided missile to destroy a target in Washington, just as the hijackers had done in New York. They knew that they had to do something. They decided to stop the hijackers however they could.
In the days after the 1889 Flood, survivors told stories of courageous feats, performed by unexpected heroes, who saved the lives of hundreds of people, often at the expense of their own. Eyewitness accounts of the flood included countless acts of kindness, often among strangers.
America and the world also responded. Millions of dollars and an estimated 85,000 tons (1,408 rail cars) of food and supplies flowed into the ruined city. One survivor wrote: “if there could be a silver lining to such a disaster, it was the stupendous charity manifested by our neighbors around the globe.”
As Johnstown reemerged from the mud and debris, new heroes also surfaced. On August 31, 1889, newspaper editor George T. Swank wrote:
“We are moving forward, slowly but steadily . . . those of us who stick together will come out all right in the end. So let us be thankful that so much help has been extended us and more is yet to come; that such great headway has been made toward rehabilitation where chaos reigned three months ago today, rather than linger over the memories of the wretched past. We cannot help that, but we can better the future – better it day by day and year by year as the present and future merge. . .”
We don’t know yet who all the heroes of September 11, 2001 will be. We already know it was a day that will be marked in history, but when historic events happen we need to step back and sort out everything.
Right now, it’s a story without an ending.
But we do know that no September 11, 2001, the passengers of Flight 93 were unexpected heroes. Their actions forever link Westsylvania with those tragedies in New York and Washington. Their actions forever link them to those unexpected heroes of Westsylvania’s history as well. And we are all better people because we have learned their stories.
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