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F. David Romaines selected as conductor for Connecticut All-State Band Festival

Good Eats! Try the Stuffed Cabbage Dinner!

<p>WILKES-BARRE &#8212; The oxymoron-ish headline read, &#8220;Runaway blimp&#8230;&#8221; as people smirked and laughed.</p><p>An unmanned military spy blimp was safely secured in northeast Pennsylvania Oct. 28 after it reportedly downed power lines throughout the region, leaving thousands without power.</p><p>Runaway blimp?</p><p>With two Air Force fighter jets dispatched to &#8220;catch&#8221; the wandering blimp, thoughts of the fairy tale about the tortoise and hare came to mind. The blimp can max out at about 50 miles per hour &#8212; an F-16 jet, about 1,500 MPH.</p><p>The 243-foot, helium-filled blimp had broken loose from its ground tether in Maryland and drifted north over Pennsylvania, Pentagon officials said.</p><p>The North American Aerospace Defense Command in Colorado said the blimp detached from its station at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland and traveled at an altitude of about 16,000 feet.</p><p>The bulbous blimp eventually came down in at least two pieces near Muncy, a small town about 50 miles west of Wilkes-Barre.</p><p>On the surface, the story is comical. Beneath the surface, serious concern has been raised.</p><p>U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta, R-Hazleton, has questions that deserve answers from the U.S. Army. He sent a letter to the Pentagon and received a response, but his questions remain unanswered.</p><p>&#8220;I&#8217;m glad the Army is still looking into how a 243-foot blimp was able to break away from its mooring and drag a mile-long tether across the landscape of Pennsylvania,&#8221; Barletta said. &#8220;I know the people of our region want answers, and so do I. I intend to stay engaged with the Army and, hopefully, hear an explanation and some new preventive measures to ensure that it doesn&#8217;t happen again.&#8221;</p><p>I talked to Barletta about the incident.</p><p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t recall Goodyear ever losing a blimp,&#8221; he told me. &#8220;The Snoopy blimp has never gotten loose.&#8221;</p><p>Yet, the Army let one go.</p><p>Barletta said the blimp was an observation blimp &#8212; a Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System (JLENS) that broke free of its mooring and drifted freely for approximately four hours.</p><p>In his letter, Barletta noted how the story of the runaway blimp was &#8220;reported with great amusement.&#8221; However, he said people in his district viewed the incident with more serious attitudes.</p><p>&#8220;Residents began suffering power outages which, in itself, was not a particularly noteworthy event, but they were somewhat surprised to learn of the culprit,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Imagine their shock when they learned that the outages &#8212; which numbered in the tens of thousands &#8212; were not caused by a storm, accident, or mechanical failure, but by an unmanned blimp dragging a 6,700 foot tether across the countryside.&#8221;</p><p>In its travels, the slow-moving blimp cut electricity to roughly half of Columbia County and impacted a substantial number of residents in Montour and Schuylkill Counties, while causing a yet-to-be-determined amount of property damage.</p><p>&#8220;Additionally, the blimp travelled through one of our nation&#8217;s busiest air quadrants, undoubtedly delaying flights and forcing the re-routing of planes,&#8221; Barletta said. &#8220;Moreover, two F-16 fighter jets were scrambled to track its movements. While, thankfully, there were no reported injuries to persons on the ground, my constituents deserve answers as to how such a spectacle was allowed to occur.&#8221;</p><p>Barletta is right. He wants to know how this football field-sized aircraft got loose. He wants to know the status of the investigation, and what steps are being taken to ensure something like this doesn&#8217;t happen again.</p><p>He also wants to know why there isn&#8217;t a system in place to ensure a controlled landing. Blimps are rather pricey, I&#8217;m told.</p><p>&#8220;With an enormous amount of public money expended, why did we rely on gravity and a few trees to bring such an expensive piece of equipment back to earth?&#8221; he asked.</p><p>The Army gave Barletta &#8220;an interim reply&#8221; that was copied to the Secretary of Defense. Mentioned in the reply were the North American Aerospace Defense Command and the U.S. Northern Command (NORAD and USNORTHCOM).</p><p>This sounds like a big deal.</p><p>Barletta said he&#8217;ll stay on top of the issue.</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s hard to lose those things,&#8221; he said. &#8220;This could have been a far more serious event. People could have been electrocuted.&#8221;</p><p>What does that say about our national security?</p><p>Barletta is still trying to put a dollar amount &#8212; one that will no doubt carry a lot of zeroes &#8212; on the episode.</p><p>Like Barletta said, if it wasn&#8217;t so serious, it would be laughable.</p><p>&#8220;It could have killed people,&#8221; he said.</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Bill O&#8217;Boyle </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/web1_Oboyle_Bill-2-15.jpg</photo0><caption0>Bill O&#8217;Boyle </caption0><photoCredit0></photoCredit0></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/web1_Blimp_1_toned.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">An unmanned Army surveillance blimp floats through the air while dragging a tether line just south of Millville on Oct. 28. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo1>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/web1_Blimp_1_toned.jpg</photo1><caption1>An unmanned Army surveillance blimp floats through the air while dragging a tether line just south of Millville on Oct. 28. </caption1><photoCredit1></photoCredit1></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Bill O&#8217;Boyle</p><p>boboyle@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Bill O&#8217;Boyle at 570-991-6118 or on Twitter @TLBillOBoyle.</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Rep. Lou Barletta in search of answers about runaway blimp