HEMPHILL,
Texas (UMNS) - The quiet skies over this small Texas town exploded one
year ago when the space shuttle Columbia crashed, killing all seven
astronauts on board.
A
committee is planning a $5 million memorial on the site where a
500-pound chunk of the shuttle's nose cone was found. The people of
Hemphill feel a special tie to the tragedy because most of the
astronauts' remains were found in that area.
Bob
Morgan, chief of the Six Mile Volunteer Fire Department, was sitting in
his living room when he heard the crash on Feb. 1, 2003.
"Suddenly the house starting shaking," he says, "and there was a tremendous roaring noise."
Morgan,
a retired criminal investigator for the Internal Revenue Service and a
member of First (Hemphill) United Methodist Church, says when he and
other firefighters initially began searching, they did not know it was
the space shuttle that had crashed.
Columbia
fell apart just moments before its scheduled landing at Cape Canaveral,
Fla. The flight that began 16 days earlier ended in tragedy because a
small piece of foam breached the left wing of the shuttle in the last
seconds after liftoff. A 248-page report released by NASA said politics,
budgets, schedule pressure and managerial complacency all played roles
in the disaster.
Bob Morgan led search and recovery efforts for remains of Space Shuttle Columbia.
Bob
Morgan, chief of the Six Mile Volunteer Fire Department, was sitting in
his living room in Hemphill, Texas, when he heard parts of the space
shuttle Columbia crash on Feb. 1, 2003. He and other firefighters spent
several days searching for remains of the shuttle and the seven
astronauts on board. Photo number W04021, Accompanies UMNS #026, 1/27/04
Morgan
remembers the search was exhausting and encompassed days of combing
through briars, dense woods and swamps in rain and sleet.
"I
remember the second evening I came in and told my wife I'd never been
that tired since I played high-school football," he says. "It was almost
an excruciating pain by the time you got through with it."
Other members of First United Methodist Church came together to walk the search lines and support the searchers.
"In
doing that, they got to know each other in a different way that brought
them closer together," says the Rev. Sherry Crenshaw, pastor.
"I
believe God calls us to live and work in community," she says. "And our
society is losing that. We live in little isolated houses rather than
the community as a whole."
No one on the ground was injured by falling parts of the shuttle because the area is sparsely populated, she says.
"There
were parts of the shuttle that were embedded in the soil, that hit with
such an impact they left little craters," she says. "Had this hit
someplace where there were cars or children playing or people laughing,
there would have been a horrific loss of life."
Sabine
County Judge Jack Leath, a member of the memorial planning committee,
says graduate architect students from Texas A&M University are
working on a design. The black box data recorder that provided clues
about the last minutes of the flight was also found in Hemphill.
"This
is where the mission ended for those astronauts," he says. "The
memorial committee sort of has a slogan: 'Their mission became our
mission.'"
UMNS photo courtesy NASA
Crew members strike a �flying� pose for their traditional in-flight crew portrait aboard the space shuttle Columbia.
Crew
members strike a �flying� pose for their traditional in-flight crew
portrait aboard the space shuttle Columbia. Bottom row (from left),
wearing red shirts to signify their shift�s color, are astronauts
Kalpana Chawla, mission specialist; Rick D. Husband, mission commander;
Laurel B. Clark, mission specialist; and Ilan Ramon, payload specialist.
Top row (from left), wearing blue shirts, are astronauts David M.
Brown, mission specialist; William C. McCool, pilot; and Michael P.
Anderson, payload commander. Ramon represents the Israeli Space Agency.
All seven crew members were killed in the crash on Feb. 1, 2003. This
picture was on a roll of unprocessed film later recovered from debris by
searchers. UMNS photo courtesy NASA, Photo number 04-027, Accompanies
UMNS #026, 1/27/04
Crenshaw
sees the experience as "the Lord's redemption" because something tragic
was turned into something that pulled a community together.
"We
don't want our country to forget," she says. "Sometimes we take things
for granted. I think the shuttle falling apart means we won't take it
for granted the next time people risk their lives."
Morgan says he and his neighbors are working to bring closure to the astronauts' families.
"Honoring
life is what the community did," he says. "Those who walked the lines
or got up early in the morning to cook breakfast for the hundreds of
searchers developed a special bond."
His faith gave him strength during those days.
"It took a request of the Lord to give me the strength. You had to rely on your faith almost constantly.
"Personally, I wasn't looking for parts of a crashed aircraft. I was looking for human remains of heroes."
United
Methodist News Service writer Kathy Gilbert wrote this report with
information provided by UMTV freelance producer John Gordon in
Texas. News media can contact Gilbert at (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org.