Camp Hill, Pa. - Back in 1989, the State Correctional Institution at Camp Hill was ripe for disaster. The prison was overcrowded and understaffed.

Then on October 25, the police radio crackled with news that crisp autumn afternoon. Superintendent John Palakovich, a prison spokesman 20 years ago, made the announcement to the news media.

"A number of inmates are currently involved in the incident," Palakovich said 20 years ago. "A number of staff have been injured. I have no definite information as to the extent of the injuries."

Inmates had overpowered corrections officers, but were contained by the perimeter fencing. The situation seemed to be calming down by the next day.

"Although things appeared to have settled down the second day, in hindsight we knew that they weren't settled down," Palakovich said today.

There were many staff members taken hostage in the second day of the uprising. Inmates seemed determined to burn the whole place down.

"When I came down over the hill the second night, the sky was fairly well lit up and I said, 'This is really big time now,' " Lower Allen Township firefighter David Warren said.

Warren said because inmates were in control, firefighters could not attack most of the flames. "Whatever was burning, we let burn," he said. "Anything that had a life, safety hazard, that was a different story."

Warren is one of the firefighters who helped rescue prison staffers that were trapped by inmates. "We pulled an air conditioner out of the window and put a ladder up to that window and literally pulled people out that second floor window, down a ladder and rescued most of the people out of that control center of the prison," he said.

By the time the riot ended on day two, dozens of prison staffers and inmates were hurt, but there were no deaths.

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