Gangrey
Vol. I · No. 1Prolonging the Slow Death of NewspapersEst. 2026

When Bad Things Happen

the disaster after the disaster

This story ran before I got to the Times, but I looked it up the other day. Glad I did. Give it a read. Wes Allison: Janet Rivera is a youthful grandmother who peppers her speech with homey phrases like "okey-dokle," lives on the dairy farm where she was born and keeps a cross-stitched American flag on her refrigerator door.

On Sept. 11, 2001, after the crash of United Airlines Flight 93 in a field rattled dishes and scared the dogs, she and other women from her Lutheran church took cakes and perogies to the investigators and firefighters at the scene.

Her husband, Glenn, oversaw security for the Somerset County Sheriff's Department, escorting relatives of the 40 passengers and crew to the point of impact. Mr. Rivera worked at the site for a year and a half, and the Riveras support building a national monument there.

But some days, Mrs. Rivera, 62, would like nothing more than to politely ask the hundreds of daily visitors to the crash site to go home.

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