The Day the World Came to Town: 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland (19 page)

Gander mayor Claude Elliott and George Vitale.
Courtesy of George Vitale

R
oxanne Loper awoke Friday morning feeling lousy. Her throat was sore, her body ached, and her head felt like it was all stuffed up. A registered nurse, she knew she was coming down with the flu, and the timing couldn’t be worse. After refusing to get on her Lufthansa flight back to Germany, Roxanne was still trying to figure out the best way to get home.

She and her husband had already overcome their first hurdle—renting a van. With Bruce MacLeod’s help, early that morning they found the last available vehicle in Gander, an eight-passenger van complete with a TV and VCR. And they needed a van that size to accommodate Roxanne and her husband, Clark, and their daughter Alexandria, as well as Tera and Jason Saarista and their two kids.

Their next hurdle was the tricky one. Since they couldn’t take the rental vehicle across the border, they were going to need help. As Clark, Bruce, and Jason went to pick up the van, Roxanne called her mother back in Texas to see if she had any ideas. Sure enough, she did. And she could sum it up in two words: the Puccis.

While Roxanne and Clark were stranded in Canada, Mike and Leslie Pucci had been calling Roxanne’s mother to see if they were okay. Roxanne and Clark knew the Puccis because both couples had used the same agency to adopt their first kids.

When the Puccis learned Roxanne and Clark were trying to find a way across the border, Mike Pucci volunteered the help of his mother, Pat Fletcher, who lives in Stueben, Maine, about fifty miles from the Canadian border. According to the plan, Pat Fletcher and her husband, Frank, would meet the two families in St. John, New Brunswick—the closest Canadian border town where the rented van could be returned—and then drive them into the United States, where they could rent another vehicle for the drive to Texas.

Now all they had to worry about was the hurricane.

Hurricane Erin had started as a tropical wave off the west coast of Africa on August 30. By September 1, it was upgraded to a tropical storm, breaking apart and re-forming several times as it moved lazily across the Atlantic. On the eighth it strengthened into a hurricane, generating winds of 120 mph, making it the first major storm of the hurricane season. Officials at the National Hurricane Center in Miami posted storm warnings for Bermuda and grew concerned that Erin might eventually make landfall in the United States. For the next three days, Erin moved along a straight line, pointing like a dagger toward the northeastern states.

On the morning of September 11, however, it had suddenly turned away from the United States and, like everything else in the air that dreadful day, appeared to be “diverted” to Newfoundland.

By Friday, September 14, the storm had weakened somewhat, but it was still classified as a hurricane, and if it persisted in threatening western Newfoundland, the ferry would have to shut down service until it passed. Roxanne and the others decided to press on; it would take them at least eight hours to drive across the province to the port town where the ferry was located. If the storm turned again, they’d be able to get on the 8
A.M.
Saturday ferry, and with any luck, they could cross into the United States some time Sunday.

By the time the van was loaded, the families truly did look like characters out of a Steinbeck novel. There were bags and suitcases strapped onto the roof, while the cat was allowed to roam free inside the van. It was raining when Bruce and Sue MacLeod walked the two families outside for the last time to say good-bye and wish them well. Roxanne didn’t know what to say. “Thank you” certainly didn’t seem adequate. It had been less than seventy-two hours since they met, and yet so much had occurred. With Jason behind the wheel and Alexandria screaming inside the van because she didn’t like being secured in a car seat, Roxanne quickly gave the MacLeods a hug and jumped in. This was going to be one long ride.

O
lesya Buntylo could finally relax. The seventeen-year-old Moldovan who was on her way to a new life in the United States had finally reached her family back home in the town of Baltsi, in the northern part of the country. Being able to call home was difficult, and she knew her parents were worried. When she finally got them, they cried over the phone. They had seen the news reports about the planes crashing into the buildings in New York and were certain Olesya had been on one of those flights.

Hearing her mother’s voice was a welcome relief for Olesya, who was seven months pregnant with her first child. Starting a new life in a new country was hard enough; doing it pregnant was another matter. And now to be stranded in yet another strange country was all the more unsettling. Olesya refused to complain. She didn’t want to seem ungrateful. And by Friday, all of the Moldovan families at the Baptist church in Gander were adapting well to their new surroundings. The younger kids were learning the joys of American culture through an assortment of Woody Woodpecker and Road Runner videos that a local dentist had brought over.

The older kids spent time playing soccer on the grass in front of the church. Clark Piercey brought his two daughters, ages nine and seven, along to play. Other church families brought their kids, too. The language difficulties didn’t seem to bother the kids, who acted as if they had been playing together for years. The adults were also finding ways to bond. The women spent time with one another in the kitchen, preparing special meals, while the men played chess and backgammon.

At night they gathered together to sing. Shawn Wiseman, a member of the church and a local musician, would play various gospel songs and hymns on his guitar to see which melodies their guests knew. They were familiar with “Jesus Loves Me,” “When the Roll Is Called Up Yonder,” and “Silent Night, Holy Night.” Of course, the Moldovans knew the words to the songs in Russian and the Baptists sang them in English, which made for an interesting arrangement. With Wiseman on the guitar, back and forth they would sing, one verse in English, the next in Russian.

When they ran out of gospel songs, Wiseman would lead his fellow church members in a few traditional Newfoundland tunes like “Jack Was Every Inch a Sailor” and “Aunt Martha’s Sheep.” Olesya and the others listened, not really understanding the words, but recognizing the joy in the voices.

A
fter a chaotic night sleeping on the floor of the Hotel Gander ballroom, the passengers of Continental Flight 23 were in a foul mood. They had spent two days in Appleton, where they were treated with warmth and kindness, when they were rounded up shortly before 10
P.M.
Thursday and told their flight was cleared to leave and they needed to get to the airport as quickly as possible. They had time only for a few hasty good-byes before the buses arrived to drive them the eleven miles to the airport.

When they arrived at the terminal, however, they were told there had been a mistake and their plane wasn’t taking off. Instead they would be taken to a local hotel—not to check into rooms but to camp out until further notice in the hotel’s ballroom. Some passengers asked if they could return to Appleton; they’d been comfortable there, and knew the people. Unfortunately, they were told, that was out of the question.

Twelve hours later the plane’s pilot and crew showed up at the hotel to update the passengers. By this point, late Friday morning, they were growing cranky. The pilot, Tom Carroll, apologized for their being needlessly uprooted from Appleton. He said he knew their ultimate destination, Newark International Airport, was still closed, and wasn’t sure why local officials had bothered to bring them to the airport on Thursday.

From an aviation standpoint, Carroll explained, the situation in the United States was constantly changing. Some airports were open, while others were closed. There were new threats and warnings on an hourly basis, and there was no guarantee Newark would open any time in the near future.

“What do you think about going to Houston?” the pilot asked. Houston was Continental’s home base, and it appeared that it would open relatively soon.

Passengers became irate. The Europeans on the plane, afraid of flying into the middle of a war in the United States, wanted to return to Dublin. The Americans wanted to press forward, but they weren’t keen on flying to Houston. They preferred to wait for Newark, especially since many of them were from New York City and wanted to get home to be with their families. Arguments erupted among clusters of passengers. One passenger stood and called for a voice vote.

“All those in favor of going back to Dublin, say ‘aye’!”

About a third of the room raised their voices.

“All those for going on to Newark.”

Two-thirds hollered for Newark. The captain, however, wasn’t looking for a vote.

“This is not a democracy,” he declared, quieting the crowd. “I’m going to do what’s safe for you, the crew, and the plane. And if I can get to Houston, I’m going to go.”

That was the end of the discussion. By midafternoon, the buses arrived once again to take them to the airport. George Vitale was happy just to be going, even if it was to Texas. On the plane the mood was light and friendly, as the tension of the argument in the ballroom had faded. Unfortunately, one of the passengers who should have been on the plane was missing, which meant all of the luggage had to be removed from the plane while they searched for the missing passenger’s bags. After several hours the plane was finally ready to leave. And there was still more good news. Newark had reopened and their plane was cleared to fly there.

W
erner Baldessarini had a change of heart.

The corporate jet of a wealthy Saudi businessman was scheduled to arrive later in the day to pick up the Hugo Boss chairman. Early in the morning, however, Baldessarini picked up the phone and canceled it. He decided he’d rather stay in Gander, at least for now.

It wasn’t that the fifty-six-year-old enjoyed sleeping on army cots on the floor of a high school gym with several hundred people. And truth be told, they weren’t even cots. They were actually stretchers with four tiny legs that rested about six inches off the ground. But after two days of living with his fellow passengers, he felt an incredible bond with all of them, as if they were part of something special. They slept together. They ate together. They played cards and watched television together.

The bond with the passengers was rivaled only by his attachment to the townspeople, whose compassion was so overwhelming. They took their visitors on driving tours of the countryside. They took them to their homes. The passengers weren’t treated like refugees, but like long-lost relatives, and the more he thought about it, the more it moved Baldessarini.

Coming from an environment as cutthroat as the fashion industry, Baldessarini realized this was not a feeling to ignore or casually dismiss. This was something to be relished. And given everything that was going wrong in the world, it was reassuring to see that right now, right here, in one small corner of the planet, something was going right.

There was no hatred. No anger. No fear in Gander. Only the spirit of community. Here, everyone was equal, everyone was treated the same. Here, the basic humanity of man wasn’t just surviving but thriving. And Baldessarini understood that he was a witness to it and it was affecting him in ways he’d never imagined.

His assistants in Frankfurt thought he was crazy when he called to cancel the private jet. He tried explaining that flying home while the others were left behind would have been an act of betrayal of everything that had happened over the last seventy-two hours. Wherever his fellow passengers went, that’s where he would go. However long it took them to get home, that’s how long he’d be gone. He was in this until the end.

D
uring Lufthansa Flight 438’s return to Frankfurt, Beth and Billy Wakefield wondered if they had made the right decision. They flew all night Thursday, arriving in Germany Friday morning. After they waited several hours at the airport, an agent for Lufthansa told them he might have good news. He couldn’t get them directly home to Nashville, Tennessee, he explained. “But I think I can get you on a flight to Canada,” he said. From Canada, the agent explained, they shouldn’t have much trouble arranging a flight into the United States.

Beth couldn’t believe her ears. Was this some sort of cruel joke? Were there hidden cameras capturing this moment for some sadistic German version of
Bloopers and Practical Jokes
? They had just
come
from Canada. When the ticket agent realized what had happened to the Wakefields, he apologized and excused himself. More than ever, Beth had doubts about their decision. Their little girl, Diana, was cutting two new teeth and nursing an ear infection, so she was still crying all the time. Now it looked like they would just be right back where they started.