It was quite chaotic trying to get folks into the airport. There was a gate that would open; people could move into the airport, and they would close the gate. It was simple. It was basically that, but we didn't really find out about it until afterwards.
Folks were being told to come to any gate and wait, but the Canadian forces were primarily manning one gate, the Baron gate. That was quite well known once we got to the aftermath of this.
People were being told.... Picture yourself.... I don't know if anybody has kids here. You have a few young kids, your wife, a two-year-old, a three-year-old and a four-year-old, and you get a call at four o'clock in the morning to pack up your family and get to the airport because your plane to Canada is coming. You grab your kids, throw them in a taxi and get all the way to the airport, and you wait, and you wait and you wait.
You have to remember that all of these folks had cellphones. They all had phone numbers. We were communicating with them. Why couldn't the Canadian government find a way to communicate with these folks on a one-to-one basis? Why weren't we enabling the Canadian forces on the inside of the airport to communicate with these folks on a one-to-one basis?
If we knew we weren't going to go to all the gates, why were we telling them to do that? We were just putting them at risk.