Hello fellow Texans and friends of Texas. Today is Thursday, Sept. 11, 2014. • • • • • • =+ -+ -+-+= Schools were named after two Texans assigned to Pentagon who died on Sept. 11, 2001< A high school in the suburban Judson ISD north of San Antonio has been named in honor of Army Lt. Col. Karen Wagner of San Antonio, one of 184 people killed when American Airlines Flight 77 struck the Pentagon. A Wagner Sports Center at Walter Reed Army Medical Center has been established in her honor. Wagner played basketball at Converse Judson and in college at Neveda-Las Vegas. Wagner spent seven years of her 17-year Army career at Walter Reed. She served as the Medical Center Brigades executive officer and secretary of the general staff of the North Atlantic Regional Medical Command. She was the deputy chief of staff for personnel in the Office of the Army Surgeon General at the Pentagon at the time of her death. Wagner grew up in a military family in San Antonio and is a 1984 graduate of the ROTC program at Nevada-Las Vegas. She earned a masters in health services administration at the San Antonio campus of Webster University, based in St. Louis, in 1992. Many Texas cities conduct events to commemorate 911. Others from Texas who died were: • Dr. Bryan Jack was a graduate of Robert E. Lee in Tyler. He worked at the Pentagon for more than 20 years. The plane he was aboard, Flight 77, crashed just 200 feet from his office. A Tyler elementary school now bears his name. • Michael E. Tinley, 56, was based in Dallas for Marsh & McLennan. The firms vice president had often visited Marsh & McLennan’s location in the World Trade Center. Early on Sept. 11, he called to tell his sister who lived in Lower Manhattan that he was in his firms 100th floor and could see her building. That was at 7:47 a.m. • Daniel Martin Caballero, 21, a 1998 graduate of Stephen F. Austin High School in Houston, also died at the Pentegon. Electronics Technician 3rd Class Caballero, enlisted in the United States Navy. Caballeros final duty assignment was at the Pentagon as an electronics technician third class petty officer. He was scheduled to go on a ship in December 2001. • • • • • • =+ -+ -+-+= 911 demonstrated importance of New York City to U.S. commerce< This writers journalism career started shortly after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. By 2001, my career had yielded to working in a call center at the time of 911. It was at the RadioShack Call Center in Cleburne about 35 miles southwest of the companys corporate headquarters in Fort Worth. Satellite television was the big thing around the turn of the century and RadioShack sold the equipment and had the agreement to set up appointments for satellite installation through its inbound call center. The center was open on Saturday and Sunday and that Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001, was a day off. On many weekdays, the pace picked up in the afternoon and night so it was common the be called in for welcome overtime. There was no overtime that Tuesday. There was no overtime for more than a month. It immediately became obvious that New York City had a part in so much of the countrys commerce. • • • • • • =+ -+ -+-+= Friend was leaving Pentagon as plane crashed< At the time of 911, a high school friend of this writer, retired Marine Lt. Col. Mike Shahan, was a consultant at the Pentagon. Before he passed away, Shahan told me that after the planes crashed in New York City that day, activity had pretty well shut down and employees were sent home. He told me he was in the parking lot at the time the plane crashed into the Pentagon. • • • • • • =+ -+ -+-+= Houston firefighters answered record number of calls in wake of Carla< On Sept. 11, 1961, a record was set for the number of calls in a 24-hour period for Houston firefighters. They answered 170 calls, most of which were because of Hurricane Carla slamming the upper Texas coast just south of Houston. Carla struck the coast about 120 miles southwest of Galveston County, placing the area in the storm’s northwest quadrant, its “dirty side.” The water did rise -- four feet above the Galveston docks and higher in some parts of the island and in low-lying areas of Texas City. It did not drain completely for several days. In Galveston, all electrical power failed by 4 p.m. Monday. It was not restored for about a week in most locations. In some locations, power was not restored for several weeks. John Sealy Hospital ran on two diesel generators for 25 hours to supply emergency lighting for operating and emergency rooms, exhaust fans and a few service elevators, according to the university’s official history. Patients were not evacuated. Hospital personnel cared for 640 patients through the storm in addition to sheltering and feeding hundreds of residents who sought refuge. Including staff, patients and refugees. The hospital cared for and fed about 5,000 people for four to five days. • • • • • • =+ -+ -+-+= Also on Sept. 11 in Texas: • In 1842, Mexican general Adrián Woll, with a force of 12,000 men, captured San Antonio. Wolls expedition was part of the continued skirmishing that went on between the Texas Revolution and the Mexican War. Wolls army was repulsed by Texan troops in the battle of Salado Creek on Sept. 18, evacuated San Antonio two days later, and returned to Coahuila. The Mexican government hailed Wolls Texas campaign as a success, promoted him to major general, and awarded him its Cross of Honor. • In 1862, William Sydney Porter was born in North Carolina. The master of short stories is much better known under his pen name O. Henry. He was a longtime resident of Austin. • In 1933, the State Parks Board acquired 198 acres of the Ottine Swamp in Gonzales County and designated it Palmetto State Park. The land was deeded to the state by the city of Gonzales, the Texas and New Orleans Railroad, and several private owners. In 1934, the Civilian Conservation Corps built several structures of native stone at the site, including a dining hall which the National Park Service later designated as one of the outstanding park buildings in the country. • In 1991, Continental Express Flight 2574, a scheduled domestic passenger airline flight operated by Britt Airways from Laredo International Airport to Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, crashed in an area an area near Eagle Lake, killing all 14 people on board. About $500,000 value worth of diamonds were discovered in the wreckage. They had no role in the crash. • In 2008, forecasting models began to show Ike making landfall just south of Galveston. City Manager Steven LeBlanc issued a mandatory evacuation order for the low lying west end of Galveston Island. Later, the mandatory evacuation order was extended to the entire island of Galveston, as well as low-lying areas around Houston. • • • • • • Texas History Day-by-Day is compiled by retired newspaper journalist Bob Sonderegger (anglebob61@yahoo). A primary source of information is Handbook of Texas Online. Your comments or additions are welcome.
Posted on: Thu, 11 Sep 2014 13:53:11 +0000
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