Pray for Boston

Watching the coverage of the explosions at the Boston Marathon takes me back to the 1996 bombing at the Olympic Games (mind you this was pre-9/11). I was the Assistant Venue Manager for Transportation at the Main Press Center(located in the Inforum and Apparel Mart directly across the street from Centennial Park). I had volunteers working at three parking structures (one which was across the street from the phone where the call was made by the bomber) along with assisting the Press in getting to the Olympic events by ensuring the buses could get from the Press Center and to Olympic event venues in a timely manner. 

Most of my volunteers were high school students, some foreign volunteers, and volunteers from the business community. I was doing my daily reports when I felt the building shake and then got a call over our mobile communication network from one of my supervisors to contact me on a land-line (in training we were advised to never say anything about a bomb over the network as to not create panic!). Once we spoke and he informed me he thought he felt the ground move and it felt like a bomb, I immediately told him to contact all our crew leaders and to meet up at our main parking facility on Baker street. My youth were scared and panicking. Once I was able to calm them down and inform them my plan to move us down Peachtree away from Centennial Park to a group of pay-telephones (remember this is 1996) so everyone could contact their families. Because I was aware of the security plans in case of this sort of event occurring I explained to them the importance of us staying together. I would not let any of them leave until I spoke to a parent and they told me their "achievable" pick-up plan, because immediately following the confirmation of a bomb MARTA was shut down. My biggest concern was to move us from the epicenter, make sure all my workforce was accounted for, and to make sure that they (my teenagers) made it safely back to their parents. 

After getting all my teenagers back with their parents, collecting our communication equipment, ensuring that my foreign volunteers had plans to get home, and my business volunteers were able to get picked up, I returned around the area of the Inforum/Apparel Mart until the Press Center was cleared for the press and other workers to re-enter. Because the call was made at a phone across the street from one of the parking decks my team oversaw I had to meet with various security forces. Needless to say I worked a 30 hour day.

This is why my first request is pray for everyone! Everyone in the area of bomb is impacted in one way or another. Special prayers to those who lost their lives and those injured.

Pray....pray.....and pray some more!