Lockdown at OR Tambo

Despite the lack of sleep I arrived at OR Tambo airport, Johannesburg feeling full of the joys of spring but not looking forward to my five hour layover. 

Immigration was a breeze, my bag came off quickly, I got myself organised and went to transfer to the check in counter for my trip to Namibia. “Sorry lady but they are having a training exercise so you cant get there within the building and need to go outside and walk down, then take the lift. Someone will help you down there” I am told. 

So off I trot, dragging my suitcase behind me. I am met by a security guard who escorts me to the departure area to find it in lockdown and anyway I can’t check in for another three hours. There are no food outlets here so I drag my stuff back to the other terminal, down the lovely clean and organised terminal till I come to the first food outlet. 

I’m in raptures. There are toasted sandwiches on the menu and better still bacon and egg toasted sandwiches. Oh oh oh. I order one with a double espresso on the side. 

It takes a while but that first mouthful was like heaven, the runny egg dribbling down my chin and the salty bacon reminding me of home. 

I hear shouting and screaming, I keep eating and just as I finish my coffee, but not my sandwich, police arrive and we are told there is an incident and we need to evacuate. People panicked, I was pretty calm as I knew about the training exercise but still followed instructions. The shouting continued, people panicked more. The staff started shutting up shop and one hid behind the counter. I grabbed my bags, left the bacon sandwich and made my way to the end of the concourse with everyone else. 

We hung around there for a bit and then the man shouting the instructions came aling with a pile of very laid back cops and they hearded us down the escalators into the basement areas, counting numbers and telling us to move on as we went. 

We settled into the arrivals area of the domestic terminal for about 30 minutes. The cops hovered, slowly. They took down our names and destination. Some people were released back to their respective jobs but the ‘travellers’ were kept there with guarantees that we would make our flights. At least it filled in my time. 

After a short debrief as to the reason behind the exercise we were released to go on our way. We were assured that it was only a practice run so that everyone knew what to do in the event of an emergency which was great and also reassuring. It filled in my layover so I am happy but I have to say I would not want to be here in a real emergency. It’s wonderful that they did the practice run and now the security people, staff and police know what to do but if it were real I would hope they would react a little faster. 

We were released and eventually I checked in and went airside. Too early (4:30am) for anything to be open but I window shopped and made a mental note to go early to the airport on my departure day so I could hit those shops. 

It was nice to be back in familiar surroundings with everything orderly, shiny, new and mostly in good working order where people spoke my language and they had real shops. See you soon Johannesburg. 

Comments

  1. beata29 November 2019 at 06:59

    I shopped for some of my fav jewellery in joburg airport.

    ReplyDelete

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