Search just starting
Posted on 02/03/2003 2:28:31 AM PST by MeekOneGOP
Search just starting
Debris, already found in 33 Texas counties, sought in recovery effort
02/03/2003
LUFKIN, Texas - It is an unprecedented search for the pieces of an unimaginable puzzle.
In the woods and in the air, on horseback and by boat, searchers combed East Texas on Sunday for the remains of space shuttle Columbia and its seven-member crew.
"We are beginning to make progress," shuttle program director Ron Dittemore said at a news conference in Houston. "It's going to take us some days and weeks" to begin to understand what happened.
The craft's disintegration Saturday rained chunks of metal, squares of tile and body parts across hundreds of miles of mostly rural Texas and far into Louisiana.
And working at scattered command centers - from Nacogdoches and Lufkin to San Augustine and Hemphill - local, state and federal searchers, with the help of volunteers, fanned out for what they expect to be a long and difficult task.
Mr. Dittemore said it was unclear how much of the shuttle had been found. "A major part of the focus is to get organized," he said.
In Texas, authorities said debris had been found in 33 counties - including at 18 sites in Ellis County - and might be scattered across 28,000 square miles.
More than 1,200 debris sites have been documented in Nacogdoches County, and more than 100 each were identified in Anderson, Cherokee, Newton, Sabine and San Augustine, authorities said.
Debris was also found in parts of North Texas, including Corinth in Denton County, Malakoff in Henderson County and Maypearl in Ellis County. A Corinth family found several pieces of debris at their home and later went to a hospital when they experienced a burning sensation after touching the pieces. Officials told Mike Baker and his family that they were exposed to a toxic residue from the fuel used in the space shuttle. Other pieces were reported near a school playground in Maypearl and at campuses in Malakoff.
MICHAEL AINSWORTH / DMN San Augustine Volunteer Fire Department members mark debris from Columbia south of San Augustine, Texas. Officials are warning the public not to touch shuttle debris. |
The finds range from the odd to the grim. Debris was roped off on the 17th hole at Woodland Hills Golf Course in Nacogdoches, but didn't stop play. The recovered remains include a charred leg, skull and the upper half of a body, officials said.
Residents across East Texas, many in quiet towns and rural areas, continued to seek, report and deliver wreckage to investigators.
Officials have responded, guarding sites and telling the public to avoid debris because of possible toxic contamination. And some said federal authorities were too slow to claim the debris.
"It's been 36 hours now and we haven't recovered anything," said Wayne Holt, San Augustine County judge. "We've got all this stuff scattered all over people's property, and these are East Texas people, who think if it's on my property it's mine."
He said a cylinder found Saturday had disappeared by Sunday morning. Mr. Holt said federal investigators had expressed concern about classified materials, particularly electronic circuitry and computer parts.
NASA officials said debris ultimately would be taken to Barksdale Air Force Base in Bossier City, La. The astronauts' remains are being taken to Lufkin, officials said, and will go to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.
Sunday morning in Nacogdoches County, four state troopers milled around a piece of metal with four shuttle tiles lying along State Highway 21.
"We were out here through the night," one state trooper said. "They gave us our assignment last night to come and relieve another team of troopers. We have to stay here until NASA comes to pick it up, and no one knows when that will be."
Officials involved in the search around Nacogdoches said helicopters were up at first light to track the debris field.
AP Wink Miller looks at wreckage believed to be from Columbia; he found it near Hemphill, Texas. Most debris is in fragments. |
Staff and students from Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches continued mapping the wreckage - from the town of Douglass, where about 20 pieces of debris were found near school offices, to the grim business of pinpointing body parts in San Augustine County.
Searchers said human remains, apparently from the shuttle, had been discovered near Chinquapin Missionary Baptist Church, south of San Augustine.
Investigators, including FBI teams from Dallas and Houston, used the church as a command post, forcing the congregation of about 30 people to cancel Sunday services for the first time in years. Deacon Carlo Birdwell said members were glad to help.
In woodlands near Chinquapin church, searchers walked in grid patterns through stands of trees. Mr. Holt said officials used helicopters, and county employees helped pinpoint roads and other landmarks.
The Stephen F. Austin team joined investigators in the woods, using global positioning systems to mark sites for recovery.
"It's not anything you can describe, but it's a sick feeling that stays with you," team leader Gregg Fuselier said.
Billy Ted Smith, emergency management coordinator for Sabine and Newton counties, said searchers had found more than 200 debris sites Sunday.
He said authorities believe debris in Sabine County is scattered across an area 50 to 70 miles long and 30 miles wide. Walking in a grid pattern and searching with lines of men, authorities on Sunday covered "an area probably a little over a square mile."
Volunteers, local police, FBI, Secret Service, NASA and state troopers located metal debris, insulation and electronic components.
"It's a very wooded area with a lot of underbrush and briars," Mr. Smith said.
BRAD LOPER / DMN An Army National Guard member stood guard over debris from space shuttle Columbia on Saturday in Nacogdoches. The woman and her daughter asked not to be identified. |
Authorities in Sabine County plan to guard the debris overnight, he said. They said the search could take weeks, and their major obstacle is amassing enough manpower.
"They have promised us some more people," he said.
More than 200 searchers, many of them volunteer firefighters, began their day at 7 a.m. at San Augustine Chamber of Commerce. On Sunday, however, people called it the command center.
San Augustine Volunteer Fire Department members, led by Chief Charles Sharp, were designated as Team No. 6. After standing around for two hours, they drove to a spot along State Highway 103, near U.S. Highway 96.
Several young men got out and primed their four-wheelers. They drove slowly up and down State Highway 103, staring at the green and muddy ground for debris.
A dozen companions, directed by two sheriff's deputies from Angelina County, headed into the woods. Their tools were a roll of crime-scene tape, a geographical positioning device and, if they had worn them, long sleeves. Most were walking through long patches of briars and thorns.
After an hour, several men emerged in an area that had been cleared by loggers. They had found three pieces of what they thought were shuttle remains: a square of black tile, a square-inch piece of cast aluminum and a small piece of hard rubber.
"It is out of the ordinary enough for what it was and where it was," said Tony Scroggins, an electrician who volunteers for the San Augustine Fire Department.
Mr. Scroggins, 38, and Ted Hall, a 25-year-old volunteer firefighter from Hudson, had scratches that covered the length of their arms.
Sgt. Barry Saucier said Team No. 6 hadn't found much but would comb a different area after lunch.
"They were all very small pieces," he said. "But I've got a good team. They found some stuff that I would never have seen."
A 24-foot U.S. Coast Guard boat wheeled into Lufkin Civic Center before noon Sunday. Its crew, like many assembling that afternoon, was unsure of its mission.
State, local and federal agencies converged steadily on Lufkin, as a command post emerged to coordinate the search for debris. Inside, FBI agents presided over a horseshoe of computer screens, tracking data about the wreckage from investigators using global positioning instruments.
Astronaut Chris Ferguson was busy on an especially grim assignment. Mr. Ferguson, who is scheduled for a May shuttle voyage, was assigned to accompany the remains of his comrades. It is a task astronauts have had little practice performing, he said.
"We kind of make it up as we go along," he said. "But I think it is the appropriate thing to do."
In the parking lot, dozens of mobile command centers hummed, and three Salvation Army trucks provided food to 300 investigators and those supporting them.
Represented were the U.S Environmental Protection Agency, a disaster relief team from Barksdale Air Force Base, the U.S. Coast Guard Gulf Strike Team from Mobile, Ala., the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, NASA, the FBI and many local agencies.
Flying in a small plane over the path that Columbia was to take, state Sen. Todd Staples surveyed the Piney Woods 3,000 feet below.
Debris is scattered across hundreds of square miles in his senate district, which covers 16 rural counties, and Mr. Staples said he wanted be sure that local agencies had the resources they needed to expedite debris collection and cleanup.
Staff writers Roy Appleton, Diane Jennings, Ian McCann, Lesley Téllez, Robert Tharp, Jason Trahan and the Denton Record-Chronicle contributed to this report.
E-mail lhancock@dallasnews.com and dmichaels@dallasnews.com
I saw one report saying it would take 48 hours to all reach the ground. I assume the late falling debris would be particulate debris.
Rest in peace, shuttle Columbia heroes...
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| MICHAEL MULVEY / DMN |
A memorial stands in Hemphill, Texas, among the many towns where search crews are organizing to look for debris and remains. |
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