Notes from Shanksville ... Friday Afternoon

Editor's Note: A resident from the Phoenixville area, James Henry, is currently at the Flight 93 Memorial dedication and filed this report.

Gray skies and light rain were not deterring vistors to the site of the Flight 93 Memorial on the eve of its dedication.

The site was packed by the curious, the reverent, and the media in anticipation of Saturday's dedication ceremony. Fields anticipated for parking use have turned sodden after days of heavy rain, challenging the National Park Service rangers to find alternate places for hundreds of cars. Parking the many groups of motorcycles poses even larger problems.

The site of the new national park, where Flight 93 crashed on Sept. 11, 2001, was at the time simply a farm field on the site of an earlier surface-mining coal operation. Although the immediate area has been improved for the memorial, everything else remains natural.  

Besides the influx of additional vistors, the site is also mobbed with media trucks and crews in anticipation of the lengthy list of VIPs scheduled for the weekend. Vice President Joe Biden is scheduled to speak Saturday as well as former president George W. Bush, Gov. Tom Corbett and other dignitaries. Singer Sarah McLachlan will perform at the as well. An appearance by former President Clinton has been announced, but which day was not mentioned. President Obama is due on Sunday.

"It's like holding a rock concert in your garage," said one harried NPS ranger while trying to direct traffic, hold back errant pedestrians and answer questions all at once. "We're holding up OK though."

The park service has brought in rangers from many other facilities to bolster the new park's staff.

Security is everywhere and will be tight for the entire weekend. All those stories you've heard about black SUVs and beefy guys in cheap sunglasses? Believe them—they're all here by at least the dozens, and most of the black vehicles have Washington, DC, or Maryland license plates.

Everyone attending will have to pass through tight, airport-grade security each day before entering the park.The park has temporarily changed its operating hours to accommodate the necessary security sweeps, and "locked down" means just that each day.

The site of the Flight 93 Memorial is about four miles outside Shanksville, just on the west side of the Allegheny Mountains, below Johnstown and southeast of Pittsburgh. The town itself is about four blocks wide and perhaps equally long with a collection of small shops, a general store and a number of churches. Today the center street had a TV satellite truck parked at curb with on-air talent doing stand-up interviews in front of the Shanksville Volunteer Fire Co. It's likely the last time that happened was 10 years ago.