Natasha Marciano holds her breath when planes fly overhead on approach to Buffalo's airport. Matthew Doherty says he's still “somewhat in shock'' after watching from his bedroom window as a commuter plane crashed and burned.
Cheryl Stevens hopes a cleaning service can rid her house of the stubborn smell of smoke. And Joseph and Nicole McGreevy have cracked windows to repair.
After two weeks, these are among the lingering effects of Continental Flight 3407's crash in this leafy Buffalo suburb. But many say the crash that shattered a neighborhood also strengthened the community.
It began the first night, when volunteers and residents converged to form a makeshift emergency management center at Town Hall, and continues now as the 200-year-old town returns to everyday life.
“Neighbors opened their doors to each other. Folks became family instantly,'' said Stevens, who lives across the street from where the plane came down, killing all 49 people on board and her neighbor, Doug Wielinski. “Why not try to cross that sooner instead of when pushed to the brink?''
School Superintendent Thomas Coseo recounted a meeting held at the high school a few days after the crash to update the public about things like road closures and counseling services.
Among the 200 who went were some of the families that evacuated pine tree-shaded Long Street, where the commuter plane crashed squarely on a house Feb. 12. The cause of the crash is still being investigated.
“They wanted to see their neighbors; they just wanted to connect and see if they were OK,'' Coseo said. “They didn't know where they had been dispersed to.''
“There are some unique connections that people are making,'' he said Thursday.
At a Clarence Town Board meeting this week, the first since the crash, the town's emergency coordinator received a standing ovation. He then dedicated the applause to the 1,100 volunteers and emergency workers who put out the fire, collected human remains, and cleared the 90-foot plane and 100 truckloads of debris from the site over the next 11 days.
Along with 61-year-old Douglas Wielinski, killed in the house, five other Clarence residents died in the Feb. 12 crash as passengers on the plane: Brad Green, 53; Ellyce Kausner, 24; Dawn Monachino; Jennifer Neil, 34, and Ernest West, 54.
The surviving Wielinskis have said they will not rebuild a home on the crash site. There is talk of a memorial instead. For now, the lot and the one next door are covered by stone, awaiting replanting in the spring.
“We are moving forward as a town and as a community, and people are supportive and have leaned on one another,'' Town Supervisor Scott Bylewski said.
But even though families living closest to the scene are finally returning to their homes, the return to normal will not come as quickly.
Marciano has lived on Long Street for two years and like other neighbors always heard the planes. She even worried that one would crash someday.
“I really thought, so many times, that the planes sound so low ... and when it actually crashed, I thought, oh my gosh, I can't believe it. This silly fear that you've had actually happened.''
She knows it will likely never happen again, but the sounds of approaching planes still alarm her.
“Every single time they go by you hold your breath and you know it's irrational -- there's like zero chance that another plane is going to crash on Long Street -- but you just can't help it. ... That fear automatically kicks up, even though it shouldn't. If I'm watching TV, I pause it and wait for the plane to go overhead so I can breathe again.''
Doherty, who looked out his third-floor bedroom window a block away in time to see the plane strike the house, headed down the highway to Rochester recently for a respite from the aftermath.
“I wanted to get out of Dodge for a little bit, out of the area where I hear planes and all that,'' he said from that city Wednesday. “I just wanted to get away.''
Some schoolchildren, meanwhile, are working through some residual effects, said Coseo, who has made sure counselors are available.
“They're clingy, maybe a little tearful. ... Just a sense of insecurity, maybe: 'Am I OK here?''' he said.
The McGreevys, who were home when the plane crashed next door, were on a flight to Ireland the next day. The couple, both teachers, went through with their winter break trip at the urging of family.
“Getting on a plane the first time after the accident was a little traumatic,'' Joseph McGreevy said.
They returned to find their red brick house in remarkably good shape, considering the jet fuel- and natural gas-fed fire that burned for hours next door. The outer panes of some of the double-paned windows are cracked, and the basement flooded when the power went out.
“It's not smoky, it's not sooty,'' said Joseph McGreevy, 27.
Yet it's hardly the same.
“It's like you live in a house, you come home from work every day and you have neighbors,'' he said, “and all of the sudden you think, is this my house? There's the towel I left on the bed. But everything's changed.''
