ANTHONY TOWNSHIP -- It's hard to forget something as big as a blimp, especially when one gets loose and lands in central Pennsylvania. The NORAD military blimp landed near Muncy one year ago today.
It's an image that's hard to forget -- a blimp stuck in a tree near Muncy. But as you may remember, this wasn't just any blimp. The NORAD military blimp got loose in Maryland and people all over the world tracked it as it glided along.
"You've never seen anything like that?"
"No, that's for sure," Ozzie Pats said.
The blimp dragged its tether underneath it, causing hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage in Columbia County. The blimp landed in a tree near Muncy.
That was last year, and one year later, people who live near where the blimp came down remember it clearly. Ozzie Pats and his neighbor drove down a nearby logging path that day to get a closer look.
"Cops didn't even know that was there! So by the time we got close to the blimp, the cops were behind us and made us turn around," Pats said.
Bill Sober was out shopping at the time and remembers having a hard time getting home.
"Had to go through a lot of ID checks and a lot of military and state police," Sober recalled.
People around the world seemed fascinated by the blimp, but for some of the residents around here it was more of an annoyance.
"It was kind of an inconvenience because for days afterwards, we had a hard time getting back and forth to the house," Sober said.
It was also an inconvenience for people in about 35,000 homes and businesses in this area that lost power. A spokesperson for NORAD says the blimp got loose as a result of a loss of air pressure, leading to quite a day in central Pennsylvania.