DPR4444 Posted February 28, 2010 Posted February 28, 2010 Yesterday I happened to see Tom Brokaw's story on the role the small town of Gander, NF played on 09/11. Did anyone else see this? I hope it will pop up on youtube or elsewhere online soon, but I couldn't find it this morning. Here is a summary I found online: " Gander is a small town of 10,000 residents in northeastern Newfoundland. The town has two stoplights and two police officers, and the people are largely descendants of Scots and Irish, living in an often harsh, rural environment. Once a refueling stop for transatlantic flights, Gander also happens to have a large airport and houses a key Nav Canada air traffic control center. While the advent of the jumbo jet made stops at Gander obsolete, that all changed on Sept 11, 2001. Following the attacks of that day, air traffic was grounded across N. America. As a result, some 167 westbound transatlantic flights that had passed the halfway point were redirected to airports around Newfoundland and the Maritime provinces, all controlled by Gander center. The Arrivals sector staffing was quickly increased from its normal three controllers to 14 to reroute all of the aircraft over a seven hour period. Gander International Airport (CYQX/YQX), which normally handles 8 domestic flights per day, received 38 aircraft, many jumbo jets, parked around the taxiways with nearly 7,000 passengers. Processing immigration for all of these passengers took over 24 hours, with the last passengers finally entering the airport terminal at noon on Wed, Sep 12. Subsequently, Gander needed to absorb this near doubling of its population. With little notice, the residents of Gander responded with incredible kindness and generosity. Passengers were bused to schools, churches, and legion halls where temporary shelters were set up (Gander has only 500 hotel beds). The locals rushed to meet them with home cooked meals and other necessities. As the passengers were not allowed to access their checked baggage, residents donated clothes and opened their shops free of charge. Prescriptions were filled by the two local pharmacies at no cost. Residents opened their homes to these stranded travelers. “Everybody just put everything on hold to take care of us.” Four days later, U.S. airspace reopened and the passengers continued onto their original destinations. However, many lasting friendships were forged over that short period, thanks to the kindness of the Ganderites. With the residents refusing to accept monetary thanks, the passengers of Delta flight 15 established a college scholarship fund for local students; from $15,000 pledged on the flight from Gander to Atlanta, the fund has now grown to nearly $900,000. Several passengers featured in the piece have returned to visit their friends in Gander, and a monument now stands there in honor of their generosity. Bravo to the residents of Gander and the surrounding area." I really hope NBC repeats this piece or puts it up on their website. I deserves to be repeated.
Beerball Posted February 28, 2010 Posted February 28, 2010 Did not see the piece, but a sounds like a terrific story.
KD in CA Posted February 28, 2010 Posted February 28, 2010 I did see it; nice piece. Some good people up there.
BuffaloBud Posted February 28, 2010 Posted February 28, 2010 One of the sub-stories. Lady lives in Columbus OH. Linky
Alaska Darin Posted February 28, 2010 Posted February 28, 2010 Pretty good for an Olympic fluff piece. I'll tip my cap to NBC on those for this particular Olympics. They didn't seem to do nearly as many and the ones they did were pretty good.
KD in CA Posted March 1, 2010 Posted March 1, 2010 Pretty good for an Olympic fluff piece. I'll tip my cap to NBC on those for this particular Olympics. They didn't seem to do nearly as many and the ones they did were pretty good. At least this time around they mostly did them on deserving people, rather than previous attempts to make me like douchebags like Bodie Miller. And I have to say the coverage of sports was much better this time around. I saw a good variety of events rather than wall to wall figure skaing for a week, saw events even if no American was challenging for a medal, etc.
Pete Posted March 1, 2010 Posted March 1, 2010 Bravo Gander, Newfoundland. These sorts of stories are newsworthy to me
gmac17 Posted March 1, 2010 Posted March 1, 2010 i think that was either a repeat or they redid one of there own programs - I know I had seen it before.
haus Posted March 1, 2010 Posted March 1, 2010 Brokaw is an Icon. Anything the man doee is exceptional. It was an awesome piece, much like the piece he did at the beginning of the Olympics. Grats to Tom and Gander and Canada as well.
Acantha Posted March 1, 2010 Posted March 1, 2010 Ahh, Gander..... I spent a month there one weekend.
Bullpen Posted March 1, 2010 Posted March 1, 2010 i think that was either a repeat or they redid one of there own programs - I know I had seen it before. I know, for some reason (don't know if it was NBC's coverage or otherwise) but I know I've heard that story before. Nevertheless (alwaysthemore) a good story and like KD said, much better than hearing about what a wonderful person Herfen Dignledorf is (despite his personal tantrums about skiing conditions, ice temps, or whatever).
UConn James Posted March 1, 2010 Posted March 1, 2010 At least this time around they mostly did them on deserving people, rather than previous attempts to make me like douchebags like Bodie Miller. And I have to say the coverage of sports was much better this time around. I saw a good variety of events rather than wall to wall figure skaing for a week, saw events even if no American was challenging for a medal, etc. Fully agree. That story on Gander was excellent. Even as a news junkie, I had never heard that before. Guess it just got lost amid all of the stuff that happened that day, then never saw air/paper b/c the people who were part of it didn't go looking for attention for what they did. In an age that is increasingly ME, ME, ME! !@#$ EVERYONE ELSE!, it lifts your heart to see people acting selflessly... it was like those planes touched down in the 1940s or early '50s. People ought to watch that piece daily, as a guide. And it sucks that many people here in the US only display this kind of courtesy in times of emergency/disaster. I also have to tip my cap for the coverage. I had never seen the biathlon televised before (I have my own opinion on why that is... and this goes for the mother network, at least; we're strictly OTA), and this go-round, they had excellent, varied day-time content that showed the whole events rather than highlights. There was some American-only/centric creep-in during some skiing events with Vonn, but otherwise, that was really dialed down from their historic offerings of all Bode Miller/Apolo Ohno/Picabo Street/Bonnie Blair/etc. all the time. Hope they keep this up for the summer games.
linksfiend Posted March 14, 2010 Posted March 14, 2010 MSNBC replaying it 1PM today at 1PM http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35841619/
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