15 years later: Another day in Shanksville
Kelly Tunney | Herald-Standard
Shanksville residents were the first to hear the crash of Flight 93 on September 11, 2001. Since then, the impact site has been turned into a national memorial, with traffic rerouted away from Shanksville for easier access to the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Some residents feel that the town has been left out of the memorialization of the tragedy that struck their home on September 11th.
Kelly Tunney | Herald-Standard
The Shanksville Post Office has hanging on its wall a photo of the Shanksville Volunteer Fire Department, photographed the Monday after 9/11, and a photo of the plume of smoke from Flight 93’s impact, shot moments after the crash by a Shanksville local, Valencia McClatchey, who grabbed her camera after she heard the explosion.
Kelly Tunney | Herald-Standard
The Rev. Sylvia Baker, 82, describes hearing the roar of Flight 93 as it passed over Shanksville before crashing a few miles away. Baker maintains a thick scrapbook filled with clippings of her media appearances since Sept. 11, 2001, when the nation’s attention focused on the quiet town of 237 residents.
Kelly Tunney | Herald-Standard
Volunteer ambassador Rosanne Croyle explains the timeline of Flight 93’s hijacking to a group of tourists visiting the National Flight 93 Memorial the week before the anniversary of 9/11.
Kelly Tunney | Herald-Standard
Snyda’s Corner Store is one of the few businesses in the small town of Shanksville, which has returned mostly to what it was before September 11, 2001, but with the addition of more American flags to street signs and front porches.
Kelly Tunney | Herald-Standard
The Rev. Sylvia Baker shows a photo by Shanksville resident Valencia McClatchey, who shot the only image of the plume of smoke from Flight 93’s crash. Baker maintains a scrapbook of the Shanksville angle of Sept. 11 news and when she was interviewed by national and international outlets.
Roberto M. Esquivel|Herald-Standard
In this 2009 file photo visitors to the temporary Flight 93 National Memorial near Shanksville, Somerset County held a Flight 93 flag as they sang “God Bless America”. This year marks the 15th anniversary of the terrorist attacks.
On a hillside near the Shanksville Volunteer Fire Department, 40 flags wave in the September morning breeze, a reminder of the first battle in the global war on terror that took place in the skies above the tiny hamlet 15 years ago.
The 40 souls lost on Flight 93 on Sept. 11, are never far from the hearts and minds of the 237 people who live in Shanksville and they bear witness to the important role their town plays in history.
Flight 93 crashed into a field in Stoneycreek Township at 10:03 a.m., less than two miles away from Shanksville. First responders, residents and clergy from the area rushed to the scene to assist, but found rescue efforts had immediately become recovery and support efforts.
Charles Sturtz was in his garage just across the road from the crash site and saw the plane as it flew over that Tuesday morning, banking to one side. Moments later his garage shook and he raced to the field.
“I didn’t see anything, just a big hole and one wheel. The trees were burnt and there was just a big hole with smoke rising and a burning smell that was so strong,” Sturtz said.
The Rev. Sylvia Baker, pastor of the Shanksville Assembly of God, went to the crash site with another member of the clergy to offer pastoral care. And just days later Baker continued that with her parishioners as well, offering a passage scripture–Nahum 1:3:
“The clouds are just the dust under God’s feet. That was my first message. The clouds that we saw that day and the fear that we felt, because we were afraid, but God would come through those clouds,” Baker said, recalling her church service that Sunday after the 9/11 attacks.
Shanksville was immediately thrust into the world spotlight and the community responded. The fire department became a hub of activity and the community opened their hearts and homes to the victims’ families and the people who came and paid their respects to the hallowed ground that held the remains of the 40 brave men and women of Flight 93.
The people of Shanksville and surrounding communities became the caretakers of that sacred space, where people came to write messages or leave flowers at the makeshift memorial created from a chain link fence placed near the crash site by the Somerset County coroner.
Fifteen years later, a beautiful memorial and visitors center has been erected by the National Park Service (NPS), marking the site where Flight 93 crashed, transforming the once strip mining area to a breathtaking national memorial.
“There’s a lot of symbolism here,” Friends of Flight 93 National Memorial Ambassador Roseanne Croyle told a small crowd of about 20 people visiting the site on Wednesday. “All of the buildings and the diagonal walls have a hemlock grain that represent the hemlock grove and branches the held so much of the debris that day.”
Croyle, a Somerset County native, has been an ambassador for five years for the Friends of Flight 93, which began in 2009.
The group estimates 300,000 people have visited the Flight 93 National Memorial and Visitors Center in the last year, expecting that number to climb to a half-million for 2016.
“People are coming from all over the world to pay their respects. I just talked to a family from Germany,” Croyle said. “Visitors are in awe of the design and when I explain it, it becomes more meaningful to them. I had a man from Malaysia say to me that the people on that plane didn’t just protect the U.S. government and save thousands of lives, but they helped protect the world because had the hijackers destroyed the U.S. government, the entire world would have toppled. That’s the world effect heroes on Flight 93 had.”
The $60 million memorial and visitors’ center was constructed through a public-private funding campaign of the National Parks Foundation with more than half the funds coming from the private sector according to the NPS.
As NPS took over the memorial site, the involvement from the Shanksville community has become less and less. Although the town proudly waves Flight 93 flags and signage to honor the heroes and many of the memorial ambassadors are community residents, there is a different feeling 15 years later.
“In the beginning Shanksville and surrounding communities all pitched in. That’s just what you do in small towns. We supported the fire department and all their efforts and we focused on the victims’ families. But now that it’s a national memorial there’s a different focus,” said Leigh Snyder, who owns Snyda’s Corner Store in Shanksville with her family.
Snyder said there are mixed feelings about the memorial these days — many support the effort, while others are disappointed and feel forgotten.
“They spent all this money building a beautiful memorial, but our government seems to have forgotten about the people who helped in the beginning,” said Snyder, a life long resident of the region.
“I want them to come visit us for the right reasons. If they’re wandering through, come off the main highway and meet the people who helped in that dark period,” Snyder said.
Because traffic is now rerouted to the Flight 93 National Memorial via Route 30 from Somerset, instead of through the borough of Shanksville, the community seems to feel disconnected from the place they once carefully watched over.
Snyder has been to the Flight 93 National Memorial numerous times but not since the visitor center opened.
“The most important thing they took away was the chain link fence. (That tribute) made it more personal than anything that could have been built. It was so heartfelt. But that’s just my personal feeling,” said Snyder.
Others seem to agree.
Sturtz said he visited the temporary memorial with his aunt but hasn’t been back to see the memorial and is not in favor of elaborate memorial.
Baker has visited the memorial in Shanksville as well as the sites in New York and Washington and she recommends people visit the Flight 93 National Memorial to see how it’s been transformed.
“I have no anti-feelings about the memorial now, but for the population at large I can say that we thought the original memorial had was a greater sense of awe and reverence,” Baker said.
Every year though, reporters return to the tiny town to ask the residents the same questions–Where were you? What were you doing? What do you remember about that day?
“It’s a rehearsed speech by now,” said Baker, who has a detailed scrap book covering those days, weeks and months that followed the 9/11 attacks.
As the county and federal government became more involved in the site and the access point to the memorial was moved seven miles away from Shanksville, the community has quietly stepped into the shadows, which saddens Baker.
She said although tragic, 9/11 became part of the Shanksville’s history and much like Fort Ligonier or the Battle of Gettysburg, the town should be included as such.
Not much has changed over the last 15 years in Shanksville.
At Snyda’s Corner Store, which feels more like stepping into the welcoming home of a good friend, people pop in to grab a gallon of milk or sit leisurely, drink their coffee, eat a homemade lunch and exchange conversation.
Life continues and the community has accepted its role in history.
“It was just part of what happened here,” said Bob Baltzer as he walked to the post office on Stutzmantown Road.
It’s just another day in Shanksville.