Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Witnesses describe the horror they experienced firsthand.
Witness describe scenes of shock and fear at airport
People ducked for cover and ran for their lives Friday at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport as a gunman reeled off shots, killing five people.
Jim Hogan and Lynn Carter of Detroit had just spent their third New Year’s week vacation in a row in Fort Lauderdale.
They had just cleared TSA security in Terminal 2 and were headed to a Delta gate.
“I heard a shot, screaming and there were people running toward me. I ditched into a shop, looking for my husband,” Lynn said.
“TSA was running toward us, saying ‘Get down! Everybody get down!’ ” Lynn said.
“I saw my husband and they were telling us to go to the jetways.”
The crowd of employees and passengers went down to the airport tarmac.
“We were there less than an hour,” Jim said. “Once they cleared [the shooter] they let everyone back inside the airport.”
Before the couple could relax, “TSA chases us again,” Jim Hogan said.
This time the couple hid inside a closet or office storage-type unit with three airport or concession employees and two passengers. One of the workers called a boss and after an hour, SWAT was at the closet door, Lynn said.
“The SWAT team brought us out to the gate and told us to sit and stay put.”
People were jumpy, she said, and would become startled at any raised voice.
All the shops were closed and airline counters at gates were not staffed. It was eerie, they said, because TVs were on the whole time, broadcasting their plight.
At 8:45 pm, they were siting on a curb at the departure level, waiting for the crowds to get on buses so they could get on the next one.
“I’m relieved that we’re safe and sound,” Jim said. “The mere fact that this individual was able to get a gun through the system shows it’s not fail-safe.”
“We had a great vacation and a great week,” Lynn said. “It’s sad that it ended in such a tragedy.”
The two were being bused to the convention center to await a 5:30 a.m. flight home that Delta had rescheduled for them. But they said they were disappointed that Delta employees and other airline workers had left the passengers alone at the gates, where they said they felt like targets.
“Everyone at the counters were gone,” she said. “They brought us water, but we couldn’t get anything else because the shops closed.”
Ann Champoux of Montreal was in Terminal 2 awaiting her flight home. She was near the escalator that leads to the ground floor and baggage claim.
“I heard like five shots,” she said. “I ran away to the bathroom. I recognized gunfire.”
State Rep. Bill Hager, RBoca Raton, was flying in from Washington, D.C., on JetBlue and realized there was trouble as soon as the plane landed at 1:45 p.m. He didn’t know why the plane wasn’t redirected to Palm Beach International or another airport.
“It was obvious that there was a major calamity unfolding here,” he said. “As I looked out the window I realized something horrific was underway. We were dumbfounded when a decision was made to land here in Fort Lauderdale. We flew right over PBI.”
Hager said that he had talked to the pilot, who was unaware of what was happening on the ground.
Looking out the window, he said, he could see “an aggregation of 200 or 300 people and at least a dozen emergency vehicles right in that area, including ambulances and fire trucks.”
Nichole Geisser was at the airport and learned about the shooting when a friend texted her to make sure she was all right.
Geisser and her daughter Sasha were in Terminal 3, planning to board a plane a Philadelphia for her nephew’s birthday party. They sat down at a restaurant across from their gate and she got her daughter a raspberry cheesecake tart. Sasha took one bite.
Suddenly people around them started shouting that there was a second shooter and people stormed the corridor outside the restaurant, shouting, screaming, tripping over one another.
“It was surreal. It was completely unbelievable,” Geisser said. “It was absolutely every man for himself. It was total panic.”
Geisser instantly grabbed her daughter and forced her under the table, collected chairs and shoved them in front of her. She stayed there, a human shield, until about four minutes later when someone said everything was OK.
Airport staff evacuated them onto the tarmac shortly thereafter.
Officials later said there was no second shooter.
Celinie Nguyen, a senior at Palm Beach Central High School in Wellington, said that had her Delta flight out of John F. Kennedy Airport not been delayed 45 minutes,, she would have flown into Terminal 2. The plane landed at Terminal 3, but she still witnessed chaos.
“We just got off the plane and were walking to the arrivals exit, but people just started running and it got crazy,” said Nguyen, who was returning from a vacation in South Africa. “There was screaming from the people running.” Nguyen said she was hiding in a safe room.
William Hazelgrove, an author, had just returned from a cruise to Belize and Honduras and was waiting in Terminal 1 for a United Airlines flight to Chicago. Suddenly, he said, people began running, thinking they had heard gunshots.
“There were just a few shoes around,” he said of the debris left by the fleeing people.
Other passengers complained about being stranded for hours without much assistance from airport officials.
Judy McCool of Philadelphia was flying home after a cruise with her husband. She said that about 1 p.m., officials put them the tarmac.
“Then they had us walk through an underground basement. Then outside again,” she said. “It’s pandemonium. No one knows anything. And no one seems to have a plan.”
They hadn’t been able to get their carry-on bags, which contained their medicine. Both have heart issues that require blood thinners and her husband has cancer, she said.
“I don’t even know if we can fly out [Saturday]. They told us they could take us to the hospital, but it’s a 15-hour wait,” she said.
Ed Kloskowski, a Boston resident, said he and thousands of others stood outside for hours. At 7 p.m., he said, they still had no idea when they’d be released or even given food or water.
People driving golf carts occasionally drove by and handed bottled water to law enforcement personnel.
“They’ve got plenty of water for themselves, but they’re not giving us any. If you try to move, they scream at you. There’s no bathrooms, no water, no food,” Kloskowski said. “Nothing but a bunch of armed police, SWAT and whatever.”
The Red Cross was on hand to distribute water and attend to passengers, said Jeff Levy of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s Regional Domestic Security Taskforce.
Staff writers Megan O’Matz, Anne Geggis and Maddy Mesa contributed to this report.