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Littler Books cover of The Day the World Came to Town Summary

The Day the World Came to Town Summary

Jim DeFede

7.7 minutes to read • Updated September 14, 2026

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Book Description

“9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland”

If You Just Remember One Thing

Following the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. closed its airspace, and Gander, Newfoundla... More

Bullet Point Summary and Quotes

  1. Newfoundland is defined by its people's willingness to help others.
  2. On September 11, 2001, U.S. airspace was shut down after the attacks, and more than 250 aircraft carrying 43,895 people were diverted to fifteen Canadian airports.
  3. 38 commercial aircrafts with 6,595 passengers and crew landed in Gander, in a town of barely 10,000. For nearly a week, "every man, woman, and child in Gander and the surrounding smaller towns...stopped what they were doing so they could help."
  4. (Day 1) Several storylines emerge as transatlantic flights are under way.
    1. Roxanne and Clark Loper are returning from Kazakhstan with their newly adopted two-year-old daughter, Alexandria, after spending their life savings and weeks navigating bureaucracies.
    2. Lufthansa Flight 400 carries Frankfurt mayor Petra Roth and Hugo Boss chairman Werner Baldessarini to New York for Fashion Week.
    3. New York State trooper George Vitale is on Continental Flight 23 from Dublin.
    4. Hannah and Dennis O'Rourke, also on a flight from Dublin, immediately worry about their son Kevin, a veteran New York City firefighter.
  5. Gander's air-traffic control center, responsible for all flights between Europe and North America, scrambles to reroute approximately 300 planes.
  6. Controller Dwayne Puddister tells pilots they have 30seconds to choose a landing site or he will choose for them. Controller Reg Batson warns pilots that anyone trying to enter U.S. airspace will be shot down.
  7. Gander International, once the world's largest airport and "the biggest gas station in the world," is the ideal landing site because of its unusually long runway.
  8. Gander mayor Elliott calculates the town may receive over 12,000 people and begins opening the emergency operations center.
  9. Airport vice-president Geoff Tucker coordinates with the RCMP and the Canadian military.
  10. The first diverted plane, Virgin Air Flight 75, lands just before 11 A.M.
  11. Aboard Lufthansa Flight 438, Roxanne Loper watches in fear as the plane suddenly banks right and diverts to Gander. Passengers speculate wildly, and rumors spread (e.g., seven planes hijacked, 10,000 dead, the White House hit).
  12. Lisa Cox, an eighteen-year-old cancer survivor traveling courtesy of the Children's Wish Foundation, fears they are at war.
  13. Captain Reinhard Knoth, having received no guidance, decides independently to continue west and is ordered to land in Gander.
  14. On George Vitale's flight, the pilot announces the terrorist strikes. Vitale immediately thinks of his sister Patty, who works in the World Trade Center, and his best friend's brother David DeRubbio, a firefighter.
  15. 38 planes fill the airport's runways and taxiways. Townspeople line the airport fences, waving to the passengers on board. The town declares a state of emergency so that all 550 hotel rooms can be seized for the flight crews. Schools are emptied and converted into shelters. Churches and fraternal halls placed on notice. Striking school-bus drivers put down their picket signs and volunteer around the clock. A pharmacist donates his entire supply of nicotine gum and patches to calm desperate smokers stranded on planes. Red Cross coordinator Des Dillon unplugs televisions and posts "Out of Order" signs on pay phones inside the airport to keep passengers moving and prevent emotional breakdowns. A volunteer tapes a map of the world to the wall with an arrow pointing to Gander: "You ARE HERE."
  16. Passengers begin leaving the planes after hours of waiting. Roxanne Loper sees the Red Cross volunteers and realizes this is no brief delay.
  17. At the Lions Club, Bruce MacLeod and volunteers offer food, bedding, and toiletries.
  18. Watching the television footage of the attacks for the first time, passengers are transfixed and horrified.
  19. Vitale receives word his sister survived, but learns both towers have collapsed. In the dark cockpit of his Continental flight, Vitale and the pilot tune into the radio to listen to President Bush's address to the nation.
  20. On Lufthansa Flight 400, a passenger's name matches a suspected terrorist. RCMP officers find a suspicious metal object in the overhead bin, which Captain Knoth identifies as a bottle of Danzka vodka.
  21. (Day 2) Residents invite passengers into their homes for showers. One woman offers her car to strangers, noting, "where would you run off to — it's an island."
  22. Hannah O'Rourke learns from her daughter-in-law Maryann that Kevin is officially missing with his company. She refuses to leave the legion hall except for daily Mass. Beulah Cooper, a Gander local, distracts Hannah by telling her jokes and taking her for drives around town.
  23. Bonnie Harris of the local SPCA discovers that twelve planes are carrying animals (dogs, cats, and rare Bonobo monkeys) that were unfed for 24 hours. She and her team crawl into the cargo of the planes to clean cages, feed animals, and look for name tags so each animal "might hear something reassuring." After a full day's effort, regional veterinarian Doc Tweedie intervenes and negotiates to move the animals into a vacant hangar.
  24. Constable Oz Fudge fulfills a long-distance promise to a Georgia police detective by tracking down her stranded sister, a Delta flight attendant, and delivering a hug: "That's from your sister."
  25. Continental Flight 5 passengers create a party atmosphere during their 30 hours on the plane as the flight attendants unlock the liquor carts.
  26. Deborah Farrar, a 28-year-old Texan on her first trip outside the U.S., befriends Winnie House, a Nigerian princess, and Lana Etherington, a lawyer from former Rhodesia. They are bused to the town of Gambo, where George and Edna Neal invite them into their home. They break down crying when they see footage of the attacks for the first time.
  27. Lakewood Academy teacher Eithne Smith spends hours sending faxes for passengers. When she learns that Rabbi Leivi Sudak and other Orthodox Jews have not eaten in over 24 hours because no kosher food is available, she arranges kosher meals within the hour. The school gives the rabbi free rein in the faculty lounge to create a kosher kitchen. Smith also reunites an Australian mother with her son by tracking him down and delivering a kiss: "That's from your mother...She says she's not angry."
  28. General Barbara Fast, the U.S. military's intelligence chief for Europe and Africa, spends the night sleeping on the floor of her plane after giving up her seat to a pregnant woman, and is eventually quietly flown back to Stuttgart.
  29. Airport CEO Gary Vey, after driving through the night to reach Gander, unknowingly climbs into bed with a 70-year-old woman from Texas whom his wife had brought home from a shelter.
  30. Every business in Gander joins the relief effort. The telephone company sets up free long-distance phone banks on the sidewalk. Rogers Communications runs temporary cable lines into churches so passengers can watch CNN. Pharmacist Kevin O'Brien and colleagues work 42 hours straight to fill over a thousand prescriptions at no cost, navigating different drug-naming conventions across a dozen countries.
  31. Patricia O'Keefe desperately tries to find her parents, Hannah and Dennis, mistakenly searching for them in Nova Scotia.
  32. (Day 3) Bruce MacLeod takes Roxanne Loper for a motorcycle ride to lift her spirits as she struggles with the uncertainty and the fact that her newly adopted daughter still prefers Clark.
  33. In Gambo, Deborah Farrar and Marine lieutenant Greg Curtis begin a romance.
  34. The Sheppards take the O'Driscolls to the Arrow Air crash memorial, where hundreds of stranded passengers also visit to pay respects. Lenny O'Driscoll sees that the Sheppards left their front door unlocked all night with two complete strangers inside: "If I had done this in Brooklyn, I would have had my throat cut."
  35. Canadian Tire donates almost $20,000 in merchandise and spends $10,000 more at competitor stores, including Wal-Mart. Store manager Susan O'Donnell rides a fire truck to Grand Falls to fill it with toys for stranded children.
  36. Tom Mercer, a retired army sergeant, volunteers as a passenger taxi driver and befriends Hannah O'Rourke. Hannah's family on Long Island enlists Senator Hillary Clinton's office to try to arrange a special flight home, without success. Patricia tells Hannah encouraging but ultimately false reports of people being pulled alive from the rubble.
  37. Hugo Boss chairman Baldessarini visits Wal-Mart for underwear and is dismayed by the quality compared to his own company's product. His staff in Frankfurt dispatches Byron Murphy, owner of a Hugo Boss retailer in St. John's, to deliver a care package. Baldessarini accepts the underwear but refuses the wine and cheese, not wanting to seem ungrateful for the town's generosity.
  38. In Lewisporte, Rockefeller Foundation vice-president Denise Gray-Felder offers to replace the school's outdated computers. The principal is astonished: "We didn't do it for the money." Gray-Felder insists: "We'll do it whether you want it or not."
  39. RCMP investigator Terry Trainor deals with an American passenger who proposes that he and three other men guard the cockpit door with axes for the return flight.
  40. Lufthansa Flight 438's pilot announces the plane will return to Frankfurt rather than continue to Dallas. Roxanne Loper leads a revolt, and most passengers raise their hands to continue to the United States. However, when the flight departs, it heads to Germany. Roxanne and Clark refuse to board, along with the Saarista family. On the plane, a man silences the chaos: "Nobody wants to go to Dallas more than I do...My mother is being buried tomorrow. But there is nothing we can do."
  41. The Lopers and Saaristas, having refused the Frankfurt flight, are briefly held under armed guard and then released with no support system. They decide to drive home, but Newfoundland is an island, all rental cars are taken, they cannot bring a Canadian rental across the U.S. border, and Hurricane Erin is approaching. With Bruce MacLeod's help, they find the last available van and enlist family friends in Maine to meet them at the border. Loaded with luggage, three children, and a cat, they set off on a journey spanning ferry crossings, multiple provinces, and thousands of miles.
  42. (Day 4) Hugo Boss chairman Baldessarini cancels a private jet sent by a wealthy Saudi businessman, choosing instead to stay with his fellow passengers. He explains that leaving "would have been an act of betrayal of everything that had happened." He reflects: "There was no hatred. No anger. No fear in Gander. Only the spirit of community."
  43. Continental Flight 23 passengers are uprooted from Appleton and held overnight in a hotel ballroom after a false departure notice.
  44. The Screeching-In ceremony (Newfoundland's tradition of making visitors honorary Newfies by having them kiss a cod, drink Screech rum, and recite a pledge) is performed for hundreds of passengers across the island. At the Trailways Pub in Gambo, Nigerian princess Winnie House is Screeched-In to uproarious cheers.
  45. Beatles impersonators Paul Moroney and Peter Ferris, passengers from Continental Flight 5, take the karaoke stage. Moroney sings "Imagine." The bar falls silent and some become teary-eyed. The night continues with "A Hard Day's Night," "Eight Days a Week," and "We Can Work It Out."
  46. The Lopers and Saaristas catch the Saturday ferry as Hurricane Erin grazes Newfoundland. Roxanne's flu worsens.
  47. In Gander, Ralph the cocker spaniel puppy becomes exhausted from playing with the airport night-shift worker.
  48. The Moldovan families at the Baptist church are unable to board their flight to Atlanta because their immigration papers specify entry through New York. They remain in Gander until arrangements can be made.
  49. Hannah and Dennis O'Rourke finally fly home to New York. When Hannah rushes to her children asking for news of Kevin, Patricia tells her: "There's still no news, Ma."
  50. Rabbi Sudak and the Hechts remain in Glenwood because they cannot travel on the Sabbath. An elderly local man named Eddie Brake, who has hidden his Jewish identity for nearly his entire life, visits the rabbi to tell his story. Born in Poland, Brake was smuggled to England as a child to escape the Nazis. He believes his parents died in the camps. He shows the rabbi the scars from childhood beatings and the tiny Star of David engraved on his walking stick. "And with his departure, Rabbi Sudak stopped wondering why he had been brought to Newfoundland."
  51. On Sunday, Pat and Frank Fletcher drive the Lopers and Saaristas across the U.S. border at Calais, Maine. Clark walks Alexandria across the line, making her a U.S. citizen. The families drive through the night, passing Boston's Logan Airport and the detours around Ground Zero. Roxanne's flu turns to pneumonia in Tennessee. They finally reach Alto, Texas, and are reunited with their other daughter, Samantha. Having traveled nearly 8,000 miles by plane, ferry, and automobile, Roxanne says: "We're home."
  52. (Afterwards) The body of Hannah and Dennis O'Rourke's firefighter son, Kevin O'Rourke, was recovered on September 23.
  53. George Vitale struggles with grief after returning to New York. His best friend's brother, firefighter David DeRubbio, is confirmed dead -- his body is never recovered. Weeks later, Appleton mayor Derm Flynn calls Vitale at just the right moment: "Just thinking about you, buddy." The calls continue over the following months, always when Vitale is at his lowest.
  54. Deborah Farrar and Greg Curtis maintain their romance by phone and email until Curtis is deployed to Afghanistan.
  55. George and Edna Neal visit Houston, and their former houseguests throw them a celebration.
  56. The Rockefeller Foundation provides $52,500 for new computers at Lewisporte Middle School and $15,000 to a local church.
  57. Passengers of Delta Flight 15 establish the Gander Flight 15 Scholarship Fund, raising over $15,000 on their flight to Atlanta.
  58. Dutch artist Clemens Briels leaves a drawing on a school blackboard signed "MANY THANKS, CLEMENS". It's framed and hung in the library.
  59. Actress Marisa Berenson, who was stranded in Gander, learns that her sister Berry was aboard American Airlines Flight 11, which crashed into the North Tower.
  60. Werner Kolb, a passenger who survived the Holocaust, faxes Lakewood Academy: "Only once was I treated in a similar way. This was when I was a child. I was liberated in Holland in 1945. You wonderful Canadians have not changed."

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