Deputy Chaguanas Mayor Faaiq Mohammed was among thousands of travellers caught in last Friday’s mass shooting in Ft Lauderdale International Airport in Florida.
Mohammed, who was at the airport waiting on a return flight home after a 10 day vacation with relatives when the incident occurred, recounted his experience to the T&T Guardian in an interview on Saturday.
“We were in the first security check point, this is where I actually heard two loud explosions and we saw everyone just diving and ducking. We were behind a glass window, everyone were diving and ducking, then everyone from outside started running inside and hit the floor saying ‘head down, head down’”.
“The security said ‘get up and run this way, get up and run this way, code red, code red’ then everyone started running towards the tarmac. We ended up on the tarmac and we stayed there for six hours,” Mohammed said.
He described the experience as the “scariest” in his life.
“When I saw people started to run and hit people, I actually paused for a minute. I was in shock, I was seeing people running and throwing their bodies on the ground. I saw a guy running and throw himself on the floor. People threw away their phones, luggage, we left our luggage and ran out, everyone was scared for their lives, you see this thing happening on TV but really witnessing it is scary,” he said.
Mohammed said he did not get any phone messages from Caribbean Airlines for an earlier flight because he had damaged his phone. He said he hoped to get an earlier stand-by flight when the airport reopened over the weekend but he has a confirmed flight for tomorrow.
Five people were killed and six injured as United States war veteran Estaban Santiago drew a handgun in the airport’s terminal and opened fire on unarmed travellers. He was enventually disarmed and arrested.
Chaguanas Mayor Gopaul Boodhan visited Mohammed’s home on Saturday night. He said councillors and aldermen had been in contact with the his office since the incident took place.
Boodhan said Chaguanas and the city of Lauderhill at Ft Lauderdale was twinned in 2010 and share deep social and cultural ties since a number of West Indian immigrants reside in the area.
Boodhan said he would be having talks with Mayor of Lauderhill Richard Kaplan, and Broward County Commissioner Dale Holness with the objective of putting some form of emergency communications system in place should any crisis occur in the future involving nationals of T&T.
He also said in light of all the global security problems taking place, people travelling from T&T should ensure they have as much channels of communications possible to their relatives.
He said T&T nationals should also make their presence aware to the nearest T&T foreign mission.