devarim

After a blogging hiatus of six weeks, this is not a particularly exciting thing to start posting about again but...well, it doesn't look like it's going to get much exposure on the news, so I figured I'd share.

At about 10:25 this morning my co-clerk and I, who work on the fourth floor of the Brooke Courthouse in downtown Boston, stepped away from our desks to run an errand in another part of the building. (We definitely didn't need to both go, but the break was welcome.) As we waited for the elevator to return to our workspace (my co-clerk is recovering from a broken ankle and so stairs are not her friend), we noticed an abundance of people streaming out of a particular corridor and walking past us to the stairs, escorted by a couple of court officers. The two of us spent a few moments pondering who these peopel were and why they were traveling in a herd (I postulated "jury pool"), and then stepped into an elevator car, along with a few members of the public and a police officer. I pushed the button for the fourth floor.

As we stepped off the elevator, we were intercepted by a court officer who told us to evacuate immediately by stairs or elevator. Well, if the elevator is OK, I reasoned, then there's no fire, and it must be okay for us to get back to our desks to grab wallets and cell phones. No such luck; the court officer herded us back toward the elevators (again, my co-clerk's ankle) and I caught a glimpse of crowds shuffling toward the doors through the atrium below - no panicked running, which impressed me.

Also - you'd think that police officer in the elevator would have told us to get out of there, wouldn't you? Or that maybe there would be some broadcast over the building's PA system?

As we made our way out the front doors of the building, I told my co-clerk about the few prior evacuations I'd been through at this courthouse, the longest of which had lasted about twenty minutes (and during which employees were allowed to remain at their desks - I had just had the bad luck of being outside when it started). After about five minutes, court officers began ordering us to step away from the doors and across the street. I suppose that's better than being right outside the doors, but if the building were to go boom I don't think the other side of Merrimac Street would really be considered outside of the blast radius, y'know?

As time ticked by, we wondered at the absence of emergency vehcles. Finally, an ambulance pulled up, followed by another. It was nearly fifteen minutes after we first left the building before a firetruck came into view. Over the course of the half-hour or so, we watched as police cars and other emergency vehicles pulled up, including a bomb squad truck. The first (and only) newsvan, from Channel 7 didn't show up until 11:15. They're right across the street - what took so long? They probably could have just sent a camera crew to the roof of their own building to get the necessary shots.

During our hour or so outside, I spotted no fewer than a dozen people attempt to cross the street to the courtyard behind the building, and at least one car pull up and start to turn into the garage below. Um, people? Do you think the couple hundred of us on the other side of the street are just out here for a mass midday dosing of vitamin D? Yeah, no. You're not that special. And, no, arguing with the two court officers that you need to park in that garage for that Very Important Business you have...elsewhere?...isn't going to change things.

Around 11:30 or so, we saw the EMTs folding up the (precautionary) stretcher they had set up in front of the courthouse, and thought that maybe our time in the sunshine was done. No such luck - it was another ten minutes at least before the front doors opened again, and then only to employees. It's a good thing we at least had our IDs with us!

Grand sum of the information I've been able to cobble together: there was a "suspicious package" found in a courtroom of the Boston Municipal Court. That's it. I assume that no explosives were found, but I've not heard anything confirming or denying it.

All in all, it was a not-unpleasant experience, in that the weather couldn't have been better (mid-60s, sunny, with a very light breeze), but we both would have preferred to have been outside under other circumstances. Like, with our wallets so we could at least enjoy some coffee.