Starting from the beginning, on Monday. Monday, April 15th was Patriot's Day. In Boston, Patriot's Day is a huge holiday. Most of the city has off of work and school. The Red Sox play and a half million people come into our city to celebrate runners, not only from the US, but all over the world. The finish line of the Boston Marathon is a tourist attraction, even on the other 364 days of the year. Nestled on a busy thoroughfare right between the Boston Public Library and Old Trinity Church in beautiful Copley Sqaure, a block away from Newbury Street (our 5th Aveune) and a block from one of the staples of our skyline - the Prudential Building, or the Pru as we affectionately call it. The finish line of the Boston Marathon represents everything that Boston stands for: millions of people who have crossed that finish line knowing that they had accomplished an amazing feat, walking the steps of those who came before us, the new and old combining to remind us that liberty is more important than death. Patriot's Day is like Mardi Gras in New Orleans, New Year's Eve in New York, or Inauguration day in DC.....it's a holiday that is ours, that we embrace with all of the passion that our Founding Fathers brought when they discussed revolution while enjoying a pint in the Green Dragon, which is still a popular stop for tourists visiting Boston on Patriot's Day.
I was not in the city that day. Although we had entertained the idea of going to the Red Sox game, we decided against it. Instead, I was in Burlington, a town 20 miles north of the city getting travel books for a trip I'm planning. I got the first message on my phone from Boston.com, a news alert saying that there had been explosions. Well, Boston is an old city. A year ago, the area was crippled when a transformer caught on fire plunging most of the city in darkness for several days. I didn't want to think that someone could take a holiday that celebrated our liberty and try to cripple us. Unfortunately, my optimism turned out to be false optimism, but I didn't know it then. Immediately, I had 10 text messages from family and friends asking where I was and if I was ok. I chuckled at the time, thinking that it is one of my biggest nightmares to be stuck in a crowd of 500,000 spectators. My sister laughed with me, because she knew I would be as far from the city as possible. As the texts poured in from family I don't regularly communicate with, my humor faded as I realized it was a bigger deal than I had thought. I turned on the news in my car and listened to what sense could be made an hour after the chaos started. Returning home, I flipped on the news and saw the video and suddenly, it was real. This wasn't a gas main explosion. This was someone deliberately trying to hurt people, my friends, my neighbors, my co-workers, people just like me.
A press conference came on the radio as I was leaving Somerville to have dinner with my little cousin in Providence. Boston Commissioner Ed Davis said two things that made me pause: 1. stay home. There was another explosion in Dorchester, 6 miles from the Boston Marathon finish line. I live only 3 miles away. They didn't know if bombs were planted everywhere so we were encouraged to stay home. 2. Cell phone service had been shut off in downtown Boston to thwart someone detonating a bomb with a cell phone. The last time I'd had this issue was on 9/11. This was further proven when I tried to call a co-worker who was leaving for France that night, and was unable to get a line out. Since, we have been told that it was just the volume of calls that froze the cell service, but I remember the commissioner saying that the service was being shut down. As I cancelled my plans and went home, I heard accounts of the hundreds of people who had been taken to the hospital. Boston has, arguably, the best hospitals in the country, so thankful for that, I realized that even the best hospitals wouldn't be able to save the 50 critical cases that had been brought in. I settled in, waiting for the death count to rise from the 3 confirmed dead. Luckily, that never happened. Our miraculous hospitals saved every single person who was injured on Monday.
It wasn't until later that evening that I realized a different co-worker's family was injured in the blasts. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday were spent responding to emails from vendors asking if we were affected by the blasts, scouring Facebook for updates from our co-worker, putting together care packages for her, and being amazed at the national press she was getting. I can't speak for everyone, but I didn't sleep much this week, not afraid, but overwhelmed with the emotions I was feeling and the memories of 9/11/01.....watching the videos of the crowd at the Bruins game singing the national anthem that reminded me of being in a similar crowd on 9/15/01 singing God Bless America, tearing up watching Yankees fans, our sworn enemies, singing Sweet Caroline, a Red Sox staple.....seeing the memorial service for the 8 year old who was killed.....very moving.
Thursday night, I was exhausted. I fell asleep at 10:30, knowing I would have to wake up early to move my car for street cleaning. When I woke up at 7am, I had 35 emails in my work account, 5 recent text messages from my sister who lives in Hawaii, which is 6 hours behind us time wise, and 3 personal emails. I bolted out of bed and flipped on the news. My sister told me to close my shades, lock my doors and stay away from windows, one suspect dead, the other on the loose, most of the city on lock-down, MBTA not running at all, and she was going to sleep now that I was awake. To my sleepy, foggy brain, it didn't make sense. I went downstairs to move my car, looking around me, terrified that a crazy terrorist was going to jump out at me. I realize now this was stupid, but I was still foggy and I didn't have the full scope of what was happening. When I came back inside, it took me a good 30 minutes to figure out what had happened. Basically, the suspects robbed a 7/11, shot and killed a cop at MIT in cold blood, shot an MBTA cop, and led the police on a chase that culminated in one of them being shot and possibly blowing himself up and the other taking off, exchanging gunfire with police and throwing explosive devices at them. The emails were from co-workers, saying that they were huddled in the middle of their houses and could hear gunfire and bombs, others who had heard explosions and were home, afraid. Cambridge, the next town over was on lock-down but my town wasn't. I live a half a mile from Cambridge if that. The other towns affected were on the western side of the city: Newton, Allston/Brighton (where BU is located), Watertown, Arlington....One of the principals of my company said that we shouldn't come in if we felt unsafe, and my HR manager, my office pal, told me personally to stay home. Finally, they told us to work from home, that the office was not opening. Glued to the TV, I attempted to work, unsuccessfully. In a typical day, I receive 100-125 emails. Yesterday, I received 15 (after the 35 I got between 4am and 8am). Around noon, my town called and sent text messages saying "City of Somerville NOT under immediate threat or lock-down but residents advised to shelter in place," meaning we weren't under official lock-down but we were advised to be in unofficial lock-down The entire city of Boston was placed in official lock-down But you know how there is always that one asshole who defies orders? Especially in Boston, full of stubborn Irish people, if you tell someone not to do something, they'll do it just to spite you. Some asshole college student would choose that time to go streaking down Commonwealth Ave trying to be funny....That wasn't the case yesterday. We were scared. We listened to the police. We stayed home, and watched events unfold on TV.
This was the traffic yesterday, at 6:00 on a Friday, in a major city. People were not outside.
At 6, they told us that they had completed their search, but didn't find the suspect. We could go out, but it was NOT advised and we needed to be very vigilant. This is one of the things the news is getting wrong. I've learned from this experience that the national news is usually 30 minutes late and about 30% accurate. As reports were coming in for license plate numbers yesterday from Connecticut, mostly broadcast on the national news, not local, I kept thinking "what the hell does Connecticut know?" But this morning, as I listened to Alison Camarota from Fox News question the governor's decision to give the "all clear," I realized that they have no clue how it went down. CNN has been botching reports all week, Fox news, nationally has been botching the news all week. It's been kinda disgraceful. Officials didn't give the all clear, they just realized that they couldn't cripple the city anymore because then, this jerk wins. No one that I know went out after they lifted the lock-down or even had plans to. We were still scared and we wanted the police to have the space to do what they needed to do. I had settled in for a long weekend.
Twenty minutes later, the Boston Globe sent out another alert - Suspect pinned in Watertown. My sister sent me a text urging me not to go out because it wasn't over - there was gunfire in Watertown. Over the next 2 hours, we watched things unfold on TV, online and on Twitter until the Boston.com headline read "Suspect in Custody". I let out a cheer. Yes, I was alone in my house, but I let out a cheer and started clapping. Then, to see people cheering for the police as they drove and walked by and the people on the Boston Common singing the National Anthem....a scene reserved for the Red Sox wining the world series.....Hundreds of people, gathering without destruction, cheering for every cop car that passed, singing the National Anthem. People who offered to buy every cop they saw a beer. There aren't words to describe the pride I felt last night.
I was not in the city that day. Although we had entertained the idea of going to the Red Sox game, we decided against it. Instead, I was in Burlington, a town 20 miles north of the city getting travel books for a trip I'm planning. I got the first message on my phone from Boston.com, a news alert saying that there had been explosions. Well, Boston is an old city. A year ago, the area was crippled when a transformer caught on fire plunging most of the city in darkness for several days. I didn't want to think that someone could take a holiday that celebrated our liberty and try to cripple us. Unfortunately, my optimism turned out to be false optimism, but I didn't know it then. Immediately, I had 10 text messages from family and friends asking where I was and if I was ok. I chuckled at the time, thinking that it is one of my biggest nightmares to be stuck in a crowd of 500,000 spectators. My sister laughed with me, because she knew I would be as far from the city as possible. As the texts poured in from family I don't regularly communicate with, my humor faded as I realized it was a bigger deal than I had thought. I turned on the news in my car and listened to what sense could be made an hour after the chaos started. Returning home, I flipped on the news and saw the video and suddenly, it was real. This wasn't a gas main explosion. This was someone deliberately trying to hurt people, my friends, my neighbors, my co-workers, people just like me.
A press conference came on the radio as I was leaving Somerville to have dinner with my little cousin in Providence. Boston Commissioner Ed Davis said two things that made me pause: 1. stay home. There was another explosion in Dorchester, 6 miles from the Boston Marathon finish line. I live only 3 miles away. They didn't know if bombs were planted everywhere so we were encouraged to stay home. 2. Cell phone service had been shut off in downtown Boston to thwart someone detonating a bomb with a cell phone. The last time I'd had this issue was on 9/11. This was further proven when I tried to call a co-worker who was leaving for France that night, and was unable to get a line out. Since, we have been told that it was just the volume of calls that froze the cell service, but I remember the commissioner saying that the service was being shut down. As I cancelled my plans and went home, I heard accounts of the hundreds of people who had been taken to the hospital. Boston has, arguably, the best hospitals in the country, so thankful for that, I realized that even the best hospitals wouldn't be able to save the 50 critical cases that had been brought in. I settled in, waiting for the death count to rise from the 3 confirmed dead. Luckily, that never happened. Our miraculous hospitals saved every single person who was injured on Monday.
It wasn't until later that evening that I realized a different co-worker's family was injured in the blasts. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday were spent responding to emails from vendors asking if we were affected by the blasts, scouring Facebook for updates from our co-worker, putting together care packages for her, and being amazed at the national press she was getting. I can't speak for everyone, but I didn't sleep much this week, not afraid, but overwhelmed with the emotions I was feeling and the memories of 9/11/01.....watching the videos of the crowd at the Bruins game singing the national anthem that reminded me of being in a similar crowd on 9/15/01 singing God Bless America, tearing up watching Yankees fans, our sworn enemies, singing Sweet Caroline, a Red Sox staple.....seeing the memorial service for the 8 year old who was killed.....very moving.
Thursday night, I was exhausted. I fell asleep at 10:30, knowing I would have to wake up early to move my car for street cleaning. When I woke up at 7am, I had 35 emails in my work account, 5 recent text messages from my sister who lives in Hawaii, which is 6 hours behind us time wise, and 3 personal emails. I bolted out of bed and flipped on the news. My sister told me to close my shades, lock my doors and stay away from windows, one suspect dead, the other on the loose, most of the city on lock-down, MBTA not running at all, and she was going to sleep now that I was awake. To my sleepy, foggy brain, it didn't make sense. I went downstairs to move my car, looking around me, terrified that a crazy terrorist was going to jump out at me. I realize now this was stupid, but I was still foggy and I didn't have the full scope of what was happening. When I came back inside, it took me a good 30 minutes to figure out what had happened. Basically, the suspects robbed a 7/11, shot and killed a cop at MIT in cold blood, shot an MBTA cop, and led the police on a chase that culminated in one of them being shot and possibly blowing himself up and the other taking off, exchanging gunfire with police and throwing explosive devices at them. The emails were from co-workers, saying that they were huddled in the middle of their houses and could hear gunfire and bombs, others who had heard explosions and were home, afraid. Cambridge, the next town over was on lock-down but my town wasn't. I live a half a mile from Cambridge if that. The other towns affected were on the western side of the city: Newton, Allston/Brighton (where BU is located), Watertown, Arlington....One of the principals of my company said that we shouldn't come in if we felt unsafe, and my HR manager, my office pal, told me personally to stay home. Finally, they told us to work from home, that the office was not opening. Glued to the TV, I attempted to work, unsuccessfully. In a typical day, I receive 100-125 emails. Yesterday, I received 15 (after the 35 I got between 4am and 8am). Around noon, my town called and sent text messages saying "City of Somerville NOT under immediate threat or lock-down but residents advised to shelter in place," meaning we weren't under official lock-down but we were advised to be in unofficial lock-down The entire city of Boston was placed in official lock-down But you know how there is always that one asshole who defies orders? Especially in Boston, full of stubborn Irish people, if you tell someone not to do something, they'll do it just to spite you. Some asshole college student would choose that time to go streaking down Commonwealth Ave trying to be funny....That wasn't the case yesterday. We were scared. We listened to the police. We stayed home, and watched events unfold on TV.
This was the traffic yesterday, at 6:00 on a Friday, in a major city. People were not outside.
At 6, they told us that they had completed their search, but didn't find the suspect. We could go out, but it was NOT advised and we needed to be very vigilant. This is one of the things the news is getting wrong. I've learned from this experience that the national news is usually 30 minutes late and about 30% accurate. As reports were coming in for license plate numbers yesterday from Connecticut, mostly broadcast on the national news, not local, I kept thinking "what the hell does Connecticut know?" But this morning, as I listened to Alison Camarota from Fox News question the governor's decision to give the "all clear," I realized that they have no clue how it went down. CNN has been botching reports all week, Fox news, nationally has been botching the news all week. It's been kinda disgraceful. Officials didn't give the all clear, they just realized that they couldn't cripple the city anymore because then, this jerk wins. No one that I know went out after they lifted the lock-down or even had plans to. We were still scared and we wanted the police to have the space to do what they needed to do. I had settled in for a long weekend.
Twenty minutes later, the Boston Globe sent out another alert - Suspect pinned in Watertown. My sister sent me a text urging me not to go out because it wasn't over - there was gunfire in Watertown. Over the next 2 hours, we watched things unfold on TV, online and on Twitter until the Boston.com headline read "Suspect in Custody". I let out a cheer. Yes, I was alone in my house, but I let out a cheer and started clapping. Then, to see people cheering for the police as they drove and walked by and the people on the Boston Common singing the National Anthem....a scene reserved for the Red Sox wining the world series.....Hundreds of people, gathering without destruction, cheering for every cop car that passed, singing the National Anthem. People who offered to buy every cop they saw a beer. There aren't words to describe the pride I felt last night.
Yesterday was a victory for the USA, the Boston Police Department, FBI, and everyone who helped capture the suspect. It was a victory for the victims who now might get some answers. It was a victory for those of us who live in Boston.
It's cliche to say that you don't get it unless you were here, but it's the truth. After speaking to a friend from home last night, I realized how much of the truth it actually is. No, this bomb didn't kill thousands of people, but it stole our holiday, our liberty, our pride and our friends away from us. It pissed us off. It united us, a city where people are personally offended if a stranger dares to talk to them is now gathering in the Boston Common singing the Star Spangled Banner. Neighbor to neighbor, united, Boston Strong.
