Seeking answers in fatal bus crash
Family of Houston man remembers him as generous soul, careful driver
Harrison Guy saw the news online: A charter bus carrying local high school kids had crashed into an Alabama ravine. He couldn’t find much information, so he moved on.
A little while later, Guy saw a Facebook post from his aunt, pleading for prayers. He froze.
“I knew immediately,” he said.
His dad had been the driver of that bus.
Harry Caligone, 65, would be the only person to die Tuesday when his bus veered off Interstate 10 and fell 50 feet into a ravine so deep that rescuers had to rappel down to reach him and the dozens of Channelview High School band members returning home from a spring break trip to Disney World.
Although details about what happened are still not fully known, Alabama officials said Caligone apparently became unresponsive while driving. Students and parents aboard the bus said the band di-
rector grabbed the steering wheel before they crashed.
On Wednesday, Guy and other family members remembered the Houston man as a generous soul, a bit of a prankster and a man who loved his work and did it well.
Caligone, a veteran driver for Houston-based First Class Tours, had left for Orlando late last week with the Channelview band kids.
The spring break trip to Disney World was a drive he made every year, said Caligone’s widow, Alisa Louis.
“That’s why it’s so shocking that this happened,” she said. “Harry knows that highway, he knows that road.”
The crash was so far away, the family didn’t go there but watched the nightmare scene unfold on the news.
“All we had was pictures,” said Allan Caligone, Harry’s brother.
First Class is arranging to bring his body back to Houston, and family members are beginning to plan a funeral. But Allan Caligone said he couldn’t get used to the fact that his brother is gone.
“We all know we’re going, we just don’t know when,” he said. “But when it’s tragic like this, we feel like we’re helpless.”
Caligone was the third-youngest of nine kids, his brother said. Their dad sold Avon products and raised all nine mostly by himself in Texas City — except for summers, when the kids would stay with their mom in Scenic Woods, a neighborhood in northeast Houston.
Years later, after their mother died, Harry Caligone moved into the house in Scenic Woods, and he and Louis lived in that lowslung ranch house together for several years.
“He was a lovable, big old teddy bear — that’s what he was,” she said.
Louis and Caligone, who was divorced, met in 2005. On his days off from driving, he used to sell beer at a hole-in-the-wall club where Louis went to hang out and shoot pool.
“Ever since that day, we just connected,” she said. “It’s been Alisa and Harry ever since. Alisa and Harry.”
Caligone helped her pay for nursing school, Louis said.
“He took care of me, and he made my life better,” she said. “He made me a better person.”
Late Tuesday, the Baldwin County medical examiner had not yet determined a cause of death.
Rumors swirled on social media that Caligone had suffered a heart attack, but his family doubts that. They also don’t believe he fell asleep.
“He wouldn’t have driven sleepy at all,” Guy said. “That’s just not consistent with the kind of driver he was.”
The bus company has a satis“Your factory rating from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.
For her own peace of mind, Louis wants to know what happened.
“I want to know what caused this,” she said. “I want to know:Was it human error or the vehicle?”
Since his father’s death, Guy has been surprised to hear from people who remembered Caligone driving them on church trips, school trips or vacations and going out of his way to help them or make their trip more pleasant.
dad was ALWAYS our driver of choice and took us all over this country,” said a woman who traveled with a church group in The Woodlands. “He not only was a skillful/safe driver (he could turn that ole bus on a dime if necessary) — he was just fun to be around.”
The notes have come from “people from all races, all ages, and it’s not even just commoncourtesy niceness,” Guy said. “They’re talking about somebody who went out of his way to be nice.”
Friends and family experienced that kindness all the time.
“If you saw him coming, he had a gift,” Caligone’s brother said.
Harry Caligone always brought back small souvenirs from the places he visited as he drove his bus acrosscountry – to New York, Nevada, Florida, all over Texas.
“My wife said he always brought the Lord to our house,” Allan Caligone said – and she meant that literally. The brothers were raised Catholic, so Harry Caligone usually chose religious souvenirs: small crosses and crucifixes, small statues of Jesus or the saints.
Allan Caligone choked back tears a couple of times Wednesday as he talked about his brother.
“I’m going to miss him, but he’s still going to be in here,” he said, tapping his heart. “I know he did all he could to keep those kids safe. It’s just unbelievable that he’s not here.”