The Day the World Came to Town: 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland

by Jim DeFede

In addition to Continental Flight 5, passengers from five other planes had been brought to Gambo. All told, nearly 900 “plane people” found themselves in this remote hamlet. The Society of United Fishermen opened their social hall to accommodate about a hundred passengers. The United Church took in 75, the Anglican Church 140, and the Catholics hosted an even hundred. Down at the volunteer fire department, the fire trucks were moved outside the station so cots could be set up in the engine bays to accommodate 120 people. Others were moved to the Smallwood Academy, the town’s only school, which educated Gambo’s children from kindergarten right on through the twelfth grade. From house to house, people stripped their closets of extra bedding, blankets, and pillows and carried them to various shelters. When word spread that the passengers didn’t have access to their luggage and had been wearing the same outfits for nearly two days, piles of old—and in some cases new—clothes magically started appearing. In the neighboring small towns of Glovertown and Dover and Hare Bay, the women decided to pitch in by cooking meals, which were delivered each day to Gambo by a caravan of cars. Any passenger wanting to take a shower needed only to tap one of the locals on the shoulder to ask. Often they didn’t even needed to do this, as people would just walk into one of the shelters and ask aloud: “Who’d like a shower?” Anyone who raised his hand was invited home.