Shuttle Columbia Disaster Remembered

Feb. 1, 2008 -- The bronze medallion embedded in the pavement behind the Commercial Bank of Texas is easy to overlook. About the size of a DVD, it barely registers as a bump for the cars pulling into the drive-thru window.

But it is there -- engraved with the name of the space shuttle Columbia and the date five years ago Friday that the spacecraft exploded over the skies of eastern Texas.

The metal disc serves as a quiet tribute to the spot where a piece of the shuttle's wing crashed to Earth in downtown Nacogdoches, and the day this tranquil town of about 30,000 was catapulted into national consciousness.

It's that way all over Nacogdoches, which proudly bills itself as "The Oldest Town in Texas" and where quaint brick streets mimic the red clay dirt found in this part of the state. Inside hotels, homes and offices -- everywhere that pieces of the shuttle rained down from the heavens -- reminders of that day remain. Some are tucked away meticulously in private memory, others displayed in public memorials.

Five years after Columbia disintegrated 39 miles over Texas as it returned from a 16-day mission, it's clear the identity of this community will be forever twinned with the fate of the shuttle.

"It is something that is still a part of my life, and probably everybody else who had part in this particular mission. And I think it always be," said Nacogdoches County Sheriff Thomas Kerss, who helped lead the recovery efforts after the disaster.

"Regardless of how long I live, I will always have a keen awareness of what we had to go through, and the obstacles we overcame to accomplish some of what we did."

It was this town, about 135 miles north of Houston, that lay directly under the shuttle's flight path and directly under the path of the debris scattered across hundreds of miles when Columbia exploded just 16 minutes from landing, killing all seven astronauts on board.