The shooting killed five people and wounded six at Fort Lauderdale airport on Friday.
Dan and Janice Kovacs and their two children were passing through airport security when the gunfire erupted. They were shoeless with wallets, passports and carry-on items chugging along a conveyer belt when they sprang into the mass of people running to safety. Now they're among stranded travellers at Fort Lauderdale trying to recover what the airport director says are 25,000 pieces of luggage, cellphones and other belongings separated from their owners during Friday's shooting rampage.
"We have no IDs, we have no passports, no money," Janice, 39, said Saturday afternoon, wearing sandals borrowed from a brother-in-law. "We just had to leave our stuff and run." "All our stuff is being processed. We might not even get that until Monday. I have an 11-year-old who is freaking out. This has been traumatic for her," she said.
The shooting Friday afternoon, which killed five people and wounded six, also stranded about 12,000 outgoing and incoming travellers, many returning from cruises or arriving ahead of the usual Saturday departures of the massive ships based in the tourism hub's Port Everglades terminal.
Some travellers were kept on planes for more than seven hours while police put the airport on lock down; others scrambled to protected corners or were hustled out onto the tarmac. The Kovacs, on the way back from a Caribbean cruise, went out onto that rough surface barefoot.
The Florida Highway Patrol sent computer-equipped buses to the airport Saturday afternoon to issue temporary ID cards to help travellers get out of state and even abroad. "We are doing what we can to help," Sgt. Mark Wysocki said.
Sydney Rivera, a 21-year-old Purdue University student, received a temporary Florida identification card that is nearly identical to the state's driver's license. On Friday, she had been about to board a flight home to Indianapolis in another terminal when people scattered over false fears of a second shooter. "This will make it a lot easier to get through security," Rivera said as she rushed to finally catch a flight.
Gov. Rick Scott said cruise ship companies were asked to accept travellers with provisional IDs. Once authorities began allowing travellers to depart the airport Friday evening, buses took thousands of them to the cruise terminal.
Airport spokesman Greg Meyer said most bags won't be available until Monday. The airport hired an outside firm to collect discarded bags and sort them by where they were found so they can be identified by their owners. Those with lost luggage were told to call a toll-free number. Richard Lanbry, his wife and 15-year-old daughter were about to board a plane home for Montreal when the shooting began. Amid the commotion, he was separated from the other two and frantically searched for them for about an hour.
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