9/11 memorial held in South Strabane
Emergency responders, during a service Friday in South Strabane Township, pay their respects to the victims and heroes of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Retired state police Capt. Roger Waters speaks Friday at a Sept. 11 program at a memorial in South Strabane Township honoring the heroes and victims of the terrorist attacks.
Sept. 11, 2001, began as a wonderful day for retired state police Capt. Roger Waters, who was preparing for a family vacation while he commanded Troop B in Washington.
Then, his supervisor walked into Waters’ office and instructed him to turn on the television because America was under attack by terrorists at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and a fourth jet was reported missing.
“We went from becoming spectators to participants,” Waters said Friday at a 9/11 memorial in South Strabane Township.
State police were quickly summoned that day to Shanksville in Somerset County, where the missing plane that was hijacked crashed while passengers tried to take over the cockpit. In all, nearly 3,000 people died as a result of the four highjacked planes.
At the same time, state police in Washington were summoned to SCI-Greene, where prisoners were rioting, Waters said.
State police called in the evening shift troopers early and cancelled all leaves in order to handle the problems, he said.
“It was two hours of sheer chaos,” Waters said, adding the riot in Greene came to a quick end after prisoners saw troopers getting off a bus at the facility.
“The Shanksville crime scene would go on for weeks,” Waters said.
He also paid tribute to the heroes involved in rescue attempts that day.
“On that day, great love was shown and bravery,” he said at the 9/11 memorial off Murtland Avenue near the Interstate 70 interchange. “Everybody was touched.”