By the time Donald Robertson, a retired architect, arrived at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport’s Terminal 1 on Friday afternoon, the mass shooting in Terminal 2, which left five people dead, had been over for at least an hour. The accused gunman, Esteban Santiago, was in police custody and the airport had largely returned to its normal rhythm — passengers were noshing, charging their phones, watching television. Things were so sedate that Robertson did not even realise there had been a shooting.

But as he made his way past the gate, Robertson looked up and saw a “stampede” of people, including what looked like law enforcement agents, racing toward him. “It was tremendous,” he said. “It was like a herd reacting. Everyone around me was diving under chairs.”

A rumour about a possible second gunman had spread across the airport, via social media, news sites and word of mouth.

People panicked and the airport was shut down, a turn of events that upended what had seemed like an orderly finale to a tragic afternoon. What followed that single rumour was a rush of terror for travellers and airport workers as they fled to the tarmac, were separated from loved ones, injured themselves in the tumult, hid in kitchens and storage rooms and hunkered down behind luggage trucks.

Chaos and uncertainty unfolded over the next 12 hours

Through it all, travellers said, they were frustrated every step of the way by the dearth of information about whether they were safe, where to go once the airport was shut down and how they could retrieve the thousands of items — 23,000 according to a tally by airport officials — that were scattered across terminals.

Sheriff Scott Israel of Broward County said he issued the order to close the entire airport as a safety precaution after he received information that “perhaps gunfire had happened and an active shooter was in another terminal.” At that point, he said, the safety of the people at the airport was paramount.

“I made a decision to clear the airport,” Israel said in an interview. “I worked with our SWAT team and other SWAT teams to clear the entire airport and the parking garage to make sure we didn’t have any other active shooter. It was a voluminous undertaking and we did it, as horrific and horrible as this scene was.”

Until that point, he said, the plan was by the book. “Had the misinformation of the active shooter not surfaced,” he said, “we would have had buses to the airport within 30 minutes.”

Israel said he could not remember how long it took to confirm there was no second gunman. Authorities debunked the rumour about 30-45 minutes after it had started to spread, raising questions about whether the airport could have been reopened right away. By then, law enforcement was already sweeping the airport and garages.

It is still unclear how the rumour began. Several travellers said in interviews that they heard what they believed to be gunshots in Terminal 3, something that sounded like loud pops. Israel said that he was told somebody saw a bloody person and assumed a second gunman was loose.

Providing accurate information to passengers and airport and airline staff members also proved challenging. Law enforcement typically can access wireless emergency alerts — the system that sends Amber Alerts — but alerts were not used to inform people that the danger had passed or instruct them on what to do next. Some airports have internal communication systems for employees to send important messages. It is unknown whether this was in place at the Fort Lauderdale airport. Instead, news, accurate and otherwise, travelled through word of mouth or was gleaned from cell phones.

“Airports can put out messages to employees, and that is important because passengers will tend to follow directions from uniformed employees in the know,” said Douglas Mansel, aviation security manager at Oakland International Airport in Oakland, California.

All airports have emergency plans approved by the Federal Aviation Administration, including for active shooter scenarios. The Fort Lauderdale airport’s director, Mark E. Gale, was not available to comment on airport protocols or on how events unfolded Friday.

Israel said communication proved tricky. With so many people spread out across different areas, including on the tarmac and in garages, it was hard to get information out.

“I tried to tell as many people verbally,” he said. “Communication is critical, but there is no way to communicate to thousands.”

Anne Buongiorno, 56, who was visiting from Canada, had to evacuate Terminal 2 twice. The first time, after the shooting, she and her 15-year-old daughter jumped under a seat, their hands over their heads. Her husband was in the bathroom. Terrified, they followed a surge of people down a staircase, but people were shoving one another. She fell down and broke her rib. She and her daughter ended up on the tarmac and were told to lie on the ground near a luggage truck.

A while later, they were told to go back inside. A similar scenario played out as the report spread of the possible second gunman. Buongiorno said she again wound up among thousands of people on the tarmac.

Clusters of people ran back and forth, fleeing what they feared was a threat as the rumour took hold. Buongiorno hid behind a truck and waited nearly for five hours before being led to a hangar and later put on a bus for the cruise port. Nobody gave her information about where to go, so she used her iPad to find a hotel, got in a long line for a cab and went there. The next day, she was back at the airport waiting for word about how to get her belongings and fly back to Canada.

“It was the first time in my life I was so afraid,” she said, her voice quavering at the memory. “I’m afraid still. When I heard somebody talk over there, I’m afraid

 

source : gulfnews