I was going to post this last Friday but the site was down. One year ago last Friday was the anniversary of the terrorist attack in Nice, France. My wife and I along with 14 of her High School French students were in Nice the night of the attack. We had been on the beach enjoying the fireworks along with thousands of others. After the fireworks were over we crossed the Promenade, the street the attack took place on, and had gotten about a quarter of mile north of there when a large group of people, screaming and yellling, came off a side street and turned and ran towards us. Everyone had no choice but to turn and run the otherway. It was pure bedlam, no one knew what was going, was there shooting going on or was there a bomb. We turned the corner of a street and regrouped but we only had 7 of the kids with us. Nobody could get ahold of anyone with their phone. We still had no idea what was going on but there people running all over the place. There was an estimated 35,000 to 50,000 that had been enjoying the fireworks so you can only imagine how chaotic it was. We finally made it back to our hotel and all but 2 of the girls were back. That was not a good feeling at all. Two of the staff members from the tour group and myself went back towards the beach area and looked for the girls to no avail. A couple from Georgia, USA, stopped us and told us what was going on along the Promenade. The woman was almost in hysterics and her husband showed me some picture on his phone that had taken of some fallen bodies. He was telling me about this truck that was running over people and causing all kinds of damage. I couldn't wrap my head around what he was telling me. I thought if something was happening it was via a shooting or bomb. We finally worked our way back to the hotel, it was about a mile north of the beach, and found out the two girls were back. You can't imagine what a relief that was. The positive was that none of us had seen the truck or any dead bodies. We were scheduled to leave the next morning for another area of southern France, I think that really helped the stress level by getting our of there. This was only day 3 of our trip and we hadn't been to Paris yet. I figured if there was going to be any problems on the trip it would be in Paris. The rest of the trip went off fine.
We last week being the one year anniversary, I reflected on that night a lot last week.
After making it through a terrorist attack, everything else is pretty minor.
When we got home, my wife and I were looking at a map and figured out that by the time they killed the terrorist he was within about a quarter mile from where we had been on the beach.
I thought some of you guys might enjoy our experience.
We last week being the one year anniversary, I reflected on that night a lot last week.
After making it through a terrorist attack, everything else is pretty minor.
When we got home, my wife and I were looking at a map and figured out that by the time they killed the terrorist he was within about a quarter mile from where we had been on the beach.
I thought some of you guys might enjoy our experience.
