Brotherwolf
02-04-2003, 07:38 PM
Space shuttle debris remains scattered throughout East Texas
By Jonathan York (Daily Texan Staff)
February 03, 2003
SAN AUGUSTINE COUNTY - The young men in blue uniforms had picked through the brush beside U.S. Highway 103. They had broken branches, penetrated fences, faded into the woods. Now they rested. And the sunset road was dotted with the treasures of their scavenger hunt: small yellow flags and strips of caution tape that each marked a charred scrap of the spacecraft that burned overhead.
Quinn Godwin was among the area residents who stopped by to observe.
Godwin, a science teacher at the nearby Hull-Daisetta Junior High, had brought his family to see the decimated remains of space shuttle Columbia.
"We looked at one of the space shuttle windows," Godwin said. "There was a big ball over in a field, and they said it had hydrazine in it ... And we saw the piece of a motor that went through a trailer."
David Bryant, a HAM radio operator, stood beside a blackened shoulder harness. He had followed the uniformed volunteer team through the woods. A black radio receiver hung from his backpack.
"Space travel's so blasé now that we don't even know when the shuttle's coming in," Bryant said.
Taking along a radio operator, like Bryant, was standard procedure. Each team in these woods around Chinquapin Creek had one, along with two workers equipped with Global Positioning Satellite technology. Their task was to locate pieces of the fallen shuttle and plot their coordinates with GPS equipment.
The roadside scene was typical of deep East Texas over the weekend.
When Columbia disintegrated, its shards rained across the pine forests between Dallas and Lousiana. A region of farms and woodlands became the stage for a national investigation into why the shuttle crashed.
San Augustine County was a quiet center of activity. Most governmental and media attention went to Nacogdoches, where debris from the shuttle littered the city. The local law enforcement center was the base for a countywide recovery operation that had identified almost 1,200 debris sites.
"I certainly think NASA realizes there is a significant amount of debris in the county," said Thomas Kerss, Nacogdoches County sheriff.
Space shuttle debris may be contaminated with toxic propellents, officials said, warning anyone who spotted the material to report its location and not to touch it. The FBI was investigating unauthorized removals of any debris.
Nacogdoches County still was waiting on Sunday afternoon for help from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which is coordinating the debris recovery nationwide. Officials seemed uncertain when FEMA would order its teams within the city to give assistance. They also were not sure whether FEMA representatives would visit the county.
"One of our biggest concerns is hearing from FEMA," said Sue Kennedy, Nacogdoches County judge.
The FBI, however, was the lead federal agency on the ground across East Texas, acting as liason between national government and local law enforcement. The FBI supervised the collection of a few debris samples at undisclosed sites, Kerss said, but he would not reveal what agency actually collected the samples.
Everywhere, recovery workers waited for NASA to recover its shuttle pieces. A Department of Public Safety trooper guarded a lone three-foot metal bar outside a deserted restaurant in Douglass. He had guarded it all day.
"They told us, 'Be prepared, it might be a week,'" the trooper said.
Law enforcement officials met in a public building in San Augustine before heading into the woods. Trucks carried All-Terrain Vehicles for use in the search for more fragments. Ann Crabtree stood by in the parking lot with a seven-person emergency medical services team, waiting to decontaminate those who needed it. She had waited since Saturday. No one had come.
"It's terrible. It's sad," Crabtree said of the shuttle disaster. "It's terrible to know that when we heard thunder, seven people lost their lives."
Gaining access to debris sites across East Texas was difficult.
Reporters in Nacogdoches County were warned about following GPS teams, and the teams' destinations were kept secret. Officials said they were attempting to gain clearance from NASA to release the locations of shuttle pieces.
James Kroll, of the Stephen F. Austin State University Forest Research Institute, directed the GPS efforts in Nacogdoches County.
"That was not my decision," he said of the secrecy. Noting that much of the wreckage fell on private land, he said, "That's one of the complicated issues. This is East Texas - people don't like people on their land."
In Austin, Gov. Rick Perry told all schools in 93 counties to keep doors closed until they were sure no debris littered their campuses.
Shuttle remains were strewn across the grounds of Douglass School, where reporters were given a walk-through of the GPS mapping process. Observers gathered outside Rice High School in Navarro County, where a charred tile lay.
By Jonathan York (Daily Texan Staff)
February 03, 2003
SAN AUGUSTINE COUNTY - The young men in blue uniforms had picked through the brush beside U.S. Highway 103. They had broken branches, penetrated fences, faded into the woods. Now they rested. And the sunset road was dotted with the treasures of their scavenger hunt: small yellow flags and strips of caution tape that each marked a charred scrap of the spacecraft that burned overhead.
Quinn Godwin was among the area residents who stopped by to observe.
Godwin, a science teacher at the nearby Hull-Daisetta Junior High, had brought his family to see the decimated remains of space shuttle Columbia.
"We looked at one of the space shuttle windows," Godwin said. "There was a big ball over in a field, and they said it had hydrazine in it ... And we saw the piece of a motor that went through a trailer."
David Bryant, a HAM radio operator, stood beside a blackened shoulder harness. He had followed the uniformed volunteer team through the woods. A black radio receiver hung from his backpack.
"Space travel's so blasé now that we don't even know when the shuttle's coming in," Bryant said.
Taking along a radio operator, like Bryant, was standard procedure. Each team in these woods around Chinquapin Creek had one, along with two workers equipped with Global Positioning Satellite technology. Their task was to locate pieces of the fallen shuttle and plot their coordinates with GPS equipment.
The roadside scene was typical of deep East Texas over the weekend.
When Columbia disintegrated, its shards rained across the pine forests between Dallas and Lousiana. A region of farms and woodlands became the stage for a national investigation into why the shuttle crashed.
San Augustine County was a quiet center of activity. Most governmental and media attention went to Nacogdoches, where debris from the shuttle littered the city. The local law enforcement center was the base for a countywide recovery operation that had identified almost 1,200 debris sites.
"I certainly think NASA realizes there is a significant amount of debris in the county," said Thomas Kerss, Nacogdoches County sheriff.
Space shuttle debris may be contaminated with toxic propellents, officials said, warning anyone who spotted the material to report its location and not to touch it. The FBI was investigating unauthorized removals of any debris.
Nacogdoches County still was waiting on Sunday afternoon for help from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which is coordinating the debris recovery nationwide. Officials seemed uncertain when FEMA would order its teams within the city to give assistance. They also were not sure whether FEMA representatives would visit the county.
"One of our biggest concerns is hearing from FEMA," said Sue Kennedy, Nacogdoches County judge.
The FBI, however, was the lead federal agency on the ground across East Texas, acting as liason between national government and local law enforcement. The FBI supervised the collection of a few debris samples at undisclosed sites, Kerss said, but he would not reveal what agency actually collected the samples.
Everywhere, recovery workers waited for NASA to recover its shuttle pieces. A Department of Public Safety trooper guarded a lone three-foot metal bar outside a deserted restaurant in Douglass. He had guarded it all day.
"They told us, 'Be prepared, it might be a week,'" the trooper said.
Law enforcement officials met in a public building in San Augustine before heading into the woods. Trucks carried All-Terrain Vehicles for use in the search for more fragments. Ann Crabtree stood by in the parking lot with a seven-person emergency medical services team, waiting to decontaminate those who needed it. She had waited since Saturday. No one had come.
"It's terrible. It's sad," Crabtree said of the shuttle disaster. "It's terrible to know that when we heard thunder, seven people lost their lives."
Gaining access to debris sites across East Texas was difficult.
Reporters in Nacogdoches County were warned about following GPS teams, and the teams' destinations were kept secret. Officials said they were attempting to gain clearance from NASA to release the locations of shuttle pieces.
James Kroll, of the Stephen F. Austin State University Forest Research Institute, directed the GPS efforts in Nacogdoches County.
"That was not my decision," he said of the secrecy. Noting that much of the wreckage fell on private land, he said, "That's one of the complicated issues. This is East Texas - people don't like people on their land."
In Austin, Gov. Rick Perry told all schools in 93 counties to keep doors closed until they were sure no debris littered their campuses.
Shuttle remains were strewn across the grounds of Douglass School, where reporters were given a walk-through of the GPS mapping process. Observers gathered outside Rice High School in Navarro County, where a charred tile lay.