1,200 Clues Strewn Across Texas

The shock and adrenaline that sustained this town in the hours following Columbia’s destruction gave way Sunday to the reality of the enormous job ahead: finding, marking and hauling away thousands of pieces of debris scattered across the most densely forested area of the state.

“We’re behind the eight-ball here,” Nacogdoches County Sheriff Thomas Kerss said. “We’re running our tails off. We may never find all of the pieces.”

Already residents have found more than 1,200 pieces of debris in this 947-square-mile county, including human remains, a seat harness and wreckage from the cockpit. Local authorities spent the night investigating the finds, as the calls kept coming at a rate of 150 per hour.

On Sunday, hundreds of federal and local law enforcement officials spread across a 120-mile “debris belt” stretching from Palestine to Hemphill, in East Texas, to search for wreckage that could help explain why the Columbia disintegrated on reentry.

In Nacogdoches, yellow caution tape and orange flags marking shuttle remnants speckled the countryside. Almost none of the debris will be picked up until federal authorities decide what should be done with it, said Sue Kennedy, county emergency management coordinator. In the meantime, local officials and volunteers will continue to stand watch over the debris until more National Guard troops arrive.

“Hold until relieved,” said Kennedy, quoting a line from the movie “The Longest Day.” “That’s what we’re going to do, hold until relieved.”

At Douglass School, on the edge of the county, volunteers used global positioning systems to enter the location of 25 pieces of debris that fell Saturday onto the schoolyard and track field.

Teams of volunteers from nearby Stephen F. Austin University are using GPS to map the location of wreckage found in this and neighboring San Augustine County. The maps will help the government “reconstruct what happened by studying the debris field,” said Dr. James Kroll, who is leading the effort.

As he watched a volunteer enter the coordinates of a piece of burnt tubing that landed on the school roof, Douglass resident John Derrick sighed. So much more may be lost forever in the dense forests that cover 40% of the county, he said. “There’s places in there a rabbit couldn’t go,” he said, waving his arm toward the pine trees in the distance.

Military airplanes and patrols on horseback began exploring those remote areas Sunday, although officials here say it will be impossible to cover every inch of land.

In addition to human remains, NASA is most interested in finding circuit boards that could contain data; hazardous or toxic materials; and large pieces of the shuttle that might yield substantial clues, Kerss said. These are the pieces that will be under guard until picked up by the federal government.

The smaller pieces -- wires, mangled shards of metal, black pieces of mesh -- have generally been left where they landed, largely unprotected. “We do not have the manpower to guard every piece of debris,” Kerss said.

A young National Guardsman said he caught a child toting a Wal-Mart bag, preparing to fill it with bits of the shattered craft. Elsewhere, in Pioneer Park, children scooped up pieces of metal and handed them to guardsmen who cautioned against touching the debris.

“Please do not commandeer any parts of the shuttle,” Kennedy said at a news conference Sunday. “NASA needs it.”

In San Augustine County, east of Nacogdoches, a piece of metal the size of a pickup truck and a 5-foot-long object that might be part of the landing gear have been found.

As dawn broke, more than 400 volunteers gathered at the county’s Chamber of Commerce in the town of San Augustine before searching the woods for more shuttle debris.

Volunteer firefighter Matt Marshall’s search team found a crew patch and a pair of shoulder straps Saturday. “From the shuttle seats,” Marshall said, pulling two imaginary straps over his shoulders.

In nearby Norwood, James Couch and his grown children found an intact crew helmet. “A helmet is an extension of a person. It hits you real close,” he said.

In Sabine County, debris was strewn over a 250-square-mile area, said Bill Smith, the county’s emergency management coordinator. The rugged forest terrain is making the search difficult, he said.

Human remains and astronaut gear were also found in Sabine County, said Sheriff Tom Maddox. Another chunk of wreckage, the size of a small car, fell into the Toledo Bend reservoir, prompting authorities to close it.

In the eastern part of the county, a hospital worker discovered a charred torso. Since then Bill and Laurette Henry don’t walk any part of their 60 acres. “I don’t want to see any of it. I really don’t,” Laurette Henry said.

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Hart reported from Nacogdoches, Calvo from San Augustine.