Heroes? They walk among us
Published: January 22, 2006
After nearly 35 years at The Saginaw News, as a reporter and now an editor, I’ve witnessed scores of dramatic events. One has no comparison.
Jan. 22, 1976, was a bitter cold day, the day the Farm Bureau Services grain elevator in Zilwaukee turned to rubble.
I was a 25-year-old reporter with a few years of experience under my belt when an editor received an anonymous call about a grain elevator explosion.
Now-retired Staff Writer Fred Garrett and I headed out.
First we went to the Bean Bunny business across the river from our office. Nothing there.
Next we tried an elevator along the river in Carrollton Township. Again, nothing.
Then we pulled into the Zilwaukee elevator drive. Chaos greeted us. A man ran past me with the back of his coat smoldering. Others were screaming for help.
In front of us was the teetering remains of the head house, the business end of a grain elevator.
We were just a few minutes from deadline. Garrett ran to gather what news he could, and I ran to find a phone.
I found one on a small wall shelf inside the elevator headquarters and called my editors. I kept the line open as Garrett made several trips to report what he had learned. I hid the phone behind my back so reporters from other news outlets didn’t know it was there.
That was journalism in those days.
After deadline, the two of us began trying to unravel conflicting reports for the next day’s paper.
It was cold, especially when you’re wearing a pair of loafers. My feet felt like blocks of ice. Actually I couldn’t feel my feet.
The high that day was 24, the low 13.
But I had no right to complain, not when I watched the scene in front of me.
How dare I complain about the cold while Larry Fess, a guy my age, was trapped for hours more than 100 feet up?
How dare I complain while police, volunteers and other rescuers worked tirelessly?
How dare I complain while family members of the missing prayed?
I learned that the rapid burning of grain dust had incredible power. It reminded me of H.G. Wells’ “War of the Worlds.”
All of mankind’s weapons had no effect on the invading Martians, but one of the smallest organisms on Earth — bacteria — killed them.
Saginaw County Central Dispatch Director Tom McIntyre was a sheriff’s sergeant then, and he says the explosion was the birth of the county’s emergency preparedness.
Plans didn’t exist, but what did exist is something that appears whenever disaster strikes.
“There was no script for this,” McIntyre says. “People just came together. They did what they did out of the goodness of their hearts.”
Accounts of the World Trade Center attack and the Oklahoma City bombing spark memories of Zilwaukee.
Saginaw County had no lack of heroes.
Larry Fess; the late Drs. Robert App and Robert Powers; the late Mike Giorgis, owner of Mike’s Wrecker Service; Marv Brandle, a real estate developer; iron workers John and Jack Davenport.
So where are the heroes of today? They always walk among us.
If you enjoyed this good news Subscribe to Good News Blog
Share this
To share this simply copy and paste one of the below URL's: