When Cecil County established a central dispatch system in October 1961, Rosemary Culley took a job with the county, joining the first group of five “operators” hired to take emergency calls. Over a thirty-five-year watch, she rose through the ranks to the top spot in the Department of Emergency Services.
She handled some of the county’s biggest disasters during her career. One occurred on December 8, 1963. When working the evening shift all alone at fire headquarters, the phones suddenly started jingling off the hook. A large jet passenger plane, with 81 people on board, had exploded in mid-air over Elkton and gone down in flames in a cornfield at the edge of town.
Abruptly, the silence of that Sunday evening was shattered. Fire station station-house radios snapped urgently to life as Dispatcher Culley’s calm, professional voice broke the silence with the most urgent alert.
Fire headquarters was pulsating with information coming in and going out as alarmed voices crackled over the radio asking for a general alarm, all available ambulances in the region, and more police as Rosie steadily coordinated the response to the terrible catastrophe, the most loss of lie disaster in Maryland history. As quickly as possible additional Civil Defense workers made their way through the heavy traffic to help the dispatcher single-handedly juggling it all, as bolts of lightning punctuated the Maryland darkness.
There were many other big disasters on her 35-year watch. Hurricane Agnes devastated Port Deposit and the Susquehanna. A gas explosion in Perryville demolished buildings downtown, claiming one life. Following a massive train wreck with flames boiling up into the sky as hazardous material tanker cars exploded, a rapid evacuation of western Elkton was speedily carried out. Three Mile Island, shipping accidents on the C & D Canal, massive pile-ups on the Interstate, blizzards, and tornadoes were some of the others.
To listen to the audio of the fire headquarters plane crash dispatch, click the link below. The recording was saved by Rosemary Culley (Source: Singerly Fire Company Museum)