Lets Roll Ride set for 9/11

Tom Henschke believes everyone can remember where they were and what they were doing on September 11th 2001. “I can hardly believe it has been ten years,” said the SMC Business Council President. To memorialize the tenth anniversary, Henschke and his company are organizing the “Let’s Roll Flight 93 Memorial Ride” September 10th and 11th.

“Flight paths” of 40 motorcycle riders will launch from cities across Pennsylvania and Virginia September 10th and then rally at the Seven Springs Resort in Somerset County the morning of September 11th. From there the riders will head to the Flight 93 memorial in Shanksville. “We did coordinate this with the flight 93 memorial,” said Henschke, “We actually have former Governor Tom Ridge as the honorary grand marshal, a number of family members will be there as well.”

The ride get its name from the last known words of flight 93 passenger Todd Beamer who was heard by his wife to say “lets roll” just before he and other passengers tried to retake control of the plane. The concept of 40 riders comes from the number of innocent passengers on the flight from Newark to San Francisco.

Ultimately the ride is about raising money for the flight 93 memorial. Each ride will find sponsors to donate at least $1,000 to the memorial fund. “Individual riders can find sponsors, an owner of a business [can] gather money and do some fundraisers among employees for a rider,” said Henschke, “You don’t have to be a rider, you just have to work together and accumulate $1,000 and find a rider.” Individuals can also donate online.

Henschke says the goal is to add more “flight paths” to the eight already planned. (Two from Erie, and one each from Pittsburgh, Williamsport, Meadville, Cranberry Township, Pottsville Philadelphia, and Fairfax, VA) An organizing kick off event for the Pittsburgh flight will be held Thursday night from 5:00 – 6:30 at Jerome Bettis’ Grille 36 on the north shore. Individuals are asked to RSVP at the Lets Roll Ride web page.

Hearing of Bin Laden's Death, Visitors Go To Flight 93 Memorial

About 800 people made their way to the Flight 93 Memorial in Somerset County yesterday. They visited a construction site, where work is underway to complete the first phase of a permanent memorial by the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks. They came after hearing that a U.S. Navy SEAL team had killed Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks.
The visitors were quiet on Monday, but the backhoes and bulldozers didn’t stop. The first component of the 58 million dollar monument is scheduled to open in four months.
Site superintendent Keith Newlin says the goal is a two-part ceremony on September 10th and 11th.

"We’ll have two ceremonies, then. On the tenth we’ll have a ribbon cutting. On the 11th we’ll have our typical memorial service."

Newlin explains what visitors will see, beginning this September.

"They’ll come down here, they’ll see a new visitor’s shelter. And then they’ll start their walk along the green field, and come closer and closer to the sacred ground. They’ll have a wall of names with all 40 passengers and crew."

The final monument will include a wind chime tower, with 40 bells...1 for each of the passengers and crew.... and groves of trees.

The current temporary memorial is sparse. A shed hosts a display about the 9/11 attacks and their aftermath, and a chain link fence overlooks the crash site.

Beverly Hoover of Landsdale, Montgomery County stopped by the site on a whim Monday. She was impressed by how much construction has changed it since her last visit.

"And I want to come back in September when the memorial is dedicated. I think if we can, we’ll be here."

Shanksville Residents on Bin Laden's Death

The National Park Service is expecting higher traffic than usual at the Flight 93 Temporary Memorial in Somerset County today.
However, Shanksville’s residents aren’t making too much of a fuss over the news Osama bin Laden has been killed.
The memorial, overlooking the field where the hijacked airplane crashed on September 11, 2001, usually opens at 9 am.
Today, reporters were parked outside before dawn, and park rangers opened the gates at 7.
Superintendant Keith Newlin is bracing for more visitors than usual.

"We did open a little earlier today. I mean, the construction people are on-site. But we opened a little bit earlier. Typically we don’t open until nine for the general public."

William Murray lives just a few miles from the site, but had never visited. He says he wanted to wait for the permanent memorial’s September opening, but he came today, instead.
Murray is glad bin Laden’s gone, but is still a bit apprehensive.

"I believe he got what he deserved, but I’d rather see him captured, and pay for what he’d done other than just killed him off, like they have. He’ll become a martyr. Probably be comeback on this, I imagine, from someone."

In Shanksville, most residents declined to be interviewed about the news, saying they had to go to work. It was a sharp contrast to New York City and Washington, DC, where people are singing and chanting in reaction to bin Laden’s death.
Flight 93 was likely headed for the White House or Capitol, when its passengers and crew challenged the hijackers, forcing them to crash the plane in Pennsylvania.

People Visit Flight 93 Memorial Upon Learning of Bin Laden's Death

It's a very different scene this morning in Shanksville, Somerset County compared to New York City and Washington, D.C. where there were celebrations overnight as people learned about the death of Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the September 11 terror attacks.

Visitors are paying their respects at the site where Flight 93 crashed as passengers and crew struggled with 4 terrorists for control of the plane. The 9/11 Commission believes the terrorists were likely targeting the White House or the Capitol.

DUQ's Kevin Gavin spoke with Reporter Scott Detrow who traveled to Shanksville.

Planting Underway on Flight 93 Garden

The Portland, Oregon-based non-profit Remember Me Roses announced its capital campaign to finish a garden dedicated to the passengers and crew of Flight 93. The competed garden will be located on a 14 acre plot donated by the Families of Flight 93 adjacent to the Flight 93 National Memorial Park; 2,982 rose bushes will be planted, one for each victim of the September 11th attacks, in the garden along with individual spaces dedicated to each passenger.

Clay Mankamyer, Vice President of the Flight 93 Garden, says Sue Casey and Michael Mitchell came up with the idea.

Sue Casey founded Remember Me Roses in the wake of the September 11th attacks as a way of paying tribute to those who died.and has since worked to plant gardens in Washington D.C., New York City, and Shanksville.

Michael Mitchell is a New Jersey/New York Area professional gardener. According to Mankaymer, Mitchell "was stranded on one of the bridges leading out of the city (on September 11th) and watched the collapse of the Twin Towers. And he just felt that he needed to be involved in some way to help with the recovery and the healing of the nation, and paying tribute to those who lost their lives." Mitchell used his experience as a professional gardener to oversee the development of the gardens.

Mankaymer says they have already started work on the property by clearing the land and planting roses and hedgerows. He says that once the garden is finished it will be shaped like a compass rose.

Emergency Protocol Changed, After Hazelwood Death

Pittsburgh Public Safety Director Michael Huss says emergency protocol has been changed as of midnight last night. That’s due to an incident in Hazelwood where 50 Year old Curtis Mitchell died after he and his wife made several emergency phone calls over a two-day period without emergency crews ever arriving until after his death. An EMS crew became stuck on the snowy roads during the storm of February 5-6 and an operator asked Sharon Edge if she could get Mitchell to the ambulance 4 blocks away. She said "no" because he was in too much pain. The dispatcher then canceled the call.
Ron Roth, the medical director for the public safety department, says the situation was made more complicated because each call from Mitchell and Edge was considered a separate request for help and information from the previous calls to 9-1-1 was not made available to the operator taking the most recent call. There are three emergency priority categories that will be altered. They are now going to send first responders to all E-0 calls, which is the most serious category that’s usually life-threatening. Fire fighters will now be responding to E-1 calls, which are things like shortness of breath. If any call that’s categorized as E-2 does not get a response within 30 minutes, a first responder will come. Huss says the purpose of this is to get someone to a site as quickly as possible. The Hazelwood man who died originally was categorized as an E-2 call because of abdominal pain. Huss says this new system will hopefully prevent an event like this from happening again.
Also, the Allegheny County Health Department will be thoroughly reviewing the situation in Hazelwood.

9-1-1 Procedures to Change

Pittsburgh officials say they are changing how emergency calls are handled after a man died in his home during a snow storm while waiting for an ambulance despite repeated 9-1-1 calls. Public safety Director Michael Huss apologized to relatives of 50 year old Curtis Mitchell of Hazelwood. Mitchell and his wife, Sharon Edge, started calling 9-1-1 Friday February 5 when a storm dumped 21 inches of snow on the city. But the ambulance could not make it to their home due to the heavy snow. Edge says emergency workers asked the couple if they could walk four blocks to reach the ambulance but he was in too much pain. So the 9-1-1 operator canceled the dispatch. Mitchell died Sunday morning February 7. Huss called the handling of the situation "unacceptable." He said EMS protocol is going to change so that every call will now have a first responder arriving at the person's door.

Western PA Possible Spot For 9-11 Trial

State and local officials are concerned that the trial of a September 11th terrorist could be held in Western Pennsylvania. Two administration officials say plans are being drafted for locations outside of New York City for the trial of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four alleged al-Qaida cohorts. Three reported options as a site for the trial are the Western District of Pennsylvania because Flight 93 went down in Somerset County as passengers fought with terrorist hijackers; the eastern Virginia District which includes the area of the Pentagon, one of the terror targets; and White Plains, New York, part of the Southern District of New York. Federal civilian trials are supposed to be held in the district where the crime is committed.
Governor Ed Rendell says he's not "dead set" against the idea but he wants to know why officials would think it would be safer to hold the trial in Pennsylvania than in New York City and how much of the cost for security the federal government would assume. Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato says Pennsylvania residents are "acutely interested in seeing the perpetrators brought to justice" but the last thing the state needs is a terrorist trial that "raises security concerns and places even more of a burden on our taxpayers."