Recollections of two Somerset County events of nearly a decade ago had residents today mulling the reverberations of Flight 93's crash and the Quecreek Mine rescue -- and officials considering all that needs to be done to memorialize the two historic sites.

Today is the eighth anniversary of the rush of water into the Somerset-area mine that trapped nine miners 240 feet below a dairy farm. The Quecreek Mine Rescue Foundation teamed with the National Park Service to hold a community day that brought scores of dedicated volunteers and intrigued onlookers to both sites.

"I think it's amazing that they are so proximate," said U.S. Rep. Mark Critz. When Quecreek occurred just more than 10 months after Flight 93 was hijacked and then downed as part of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, residents of the area thought, "Not again. Not another disaster," he said.

But whereas Flight 93's crash was a tale of defiance and tragedy, Quecreek ended with uplift after a four-day struggle when all nine miners were elevated from the flooded cavern.

"It brought a lot of people together and put our county on the map," said Blaine Mayhugh, one of the trapped miners, at a ceremony at the Quecreek rescue site. He now services windmills.

The rescue site is on the Arnold family's farm, and the foundation they launched is in the process of a $1 million capital campaign to complete the interior of a building constructed to be the display site for the event's artifacts.

At the Flight 93 site in Shanksville, a new temporary memorial site opened two weeks ago in the metal structure that was used as a command post after the crash. Below an overlook, the site of the permanent memorial is taking shape, with the first phase scheduled to open on the 10-year anniversary of the attacks.

That phase will consist of a memorial plaza with a wall displaying the names of the passengers and crew, "right up against the edge of the crash site," said Jeff Reinbold, the project site coordinator for the National Park Service. The crash site itself will be off limits because it is considered a grave.

Future phases in the 1,000-acres, $60 million project will include a broken circle of trees, a visitor's center and a "tower of voices" with wind chimes, scheduled to open in 2014.

"It's worth the trip," said Beth Thomas, a Newark, Del., resident who happened to stop at the site today en route home from a visit to Pittsburgh. "I remember what a perfect day it was that morning. It's helpful to come here so we don't forget" what happened to shatter the calm.

"We'll come back in four years," she said.

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