Judy Baglier of Butler actually saw the crash of Flight 93 outside Shanksville, although she didn't know what it was at the time.

Baglier was taking some visiting English friends to a craft store in Somerset, when she said she saw what happened when Flight 93 hit the ground.

“I saw a huge explosion. I did not know it was a plane. I thought it was a factory that had blown up,” she said.

“It was unlike anything I had every seen. It was like a big fireball and it was so loud,” Baglier said.

Her friends had to call England to let their families know they were all right amid all the chaos and closings that followed the Sept. 11 attacks.

Barry Bridgeman of Valencia was visiting his sister at the Butler County Courthouse when they heard the first reports.They turned on a TV in time to see the second plane hit the towers.He remembers driving in Butler that afternoon and there was no one on the streets.“It was a ghost town. Everyone was home in front the TV,” Bridgeman said.

Retiree Hannah Case of Brady Township was still a professor of Romance languages at Slippery Rock University that day.After an early-morning class, Case said she returned to her office where a secretary told her that a plane had crashed into one of the towers.“She had a TV on her computer and we watched the other plane crash into the tower,” Case said.She remembered the SRU librarian had a son in New York City, who phoned her to let her know he was fine.“Obviously we were all just stunned,” Case said. “My daughter was a freshman at SRU and living at home at the time. We all sat in front of the TV.”