they scared everyone on both sides of the Hudson half to death -- for a photo op?

first a little geography.

I work in Jersey City, NJ, in an office building right on the Hudson River. Due east from us, across the river, is lower Manhattan, more specifically, the World trade Center. from our 30th floor windows, if we look due south, we can see ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. If we look north, we see the Manhattan skyline to the east, including the Chrysler building and the Empire State building. on a clear day we can see all the way to the George Washington Bridge at the northern tip of Manhattan. when Captain sully landed his plane in the Hudson, we were able to watch the rescue from our office windows.

so you think someone might have realized that people in this neighborhood might be a wee bit...sensitive...to low-flying planes?

ya think?

so you can well imagine the panic this morning....

here, I'll let the media tell what happened:

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/newyork/ny-nyplanes0428,0,1126948.story

Newsday.com
Low-flying Air Force One photo-op panics NYers
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

12:49 PM EDT, April 27, 2009


A Boeing 747 used by the president was escorted over lower Manhattan by two Air Force fighter jets Monday as part of a government photo opportunity, causing a brief panic among office workers near ground zero.

Workers from several office buildings poured out onto the streets before they learned that the flights were innocuous.

John Leitner, a floor trader at the New York Mercantile Exchange Building, said about 1,000 people "went into a total panic" and ran out of the building around 10 a.m. after seeing the planes whiz by their building, near the World Trade Center site.

"Apparently, nobody in the building was informed that this was going to happen," he said. "Everyone panicked, as you can certainly understand."

He said the workers gathered along the Hudson River esplanade until a security officer with a bullhorn told them it was a planned exercise.

The Federal Aviation Administration said the government was conducting a photo op involving two Air Force F-16 jets and the larger airplane, a Defense Department version of the 747 that is called Air Force One when the president is aboard. It said it notified city law enforcement about the mission.

The NYPD said the flight "was authorized by the FAA for the vicinity of the Statue of Liberty, with directives to local authorities not to disclose information about it, but to direct all inquiries to the FAA."

Among the workers who left their buildings were some at The Wall Street Journal.

Kathleen Seagriff, a staff assistant in the news rooms, said workers heard the roar of the planes and then saw them from their windows.

"They went down the Hudson, turned around and came back by the building," she said. "It was a scary scene, especially for those of us who were there on 9/11."

Some staffers, who thought they made out an American flag on one of the planes, stayed behind. But she said most didn't want to take the chance.

Copyright © 2009, Newsday Inc.

Our building security people were right on top of things, we didn't leave because they found out ASAP that it was just a "military exercise" and kept us from panic as we watched all the other office buildings in the neighborhood evacuate...

just another reason why life in and around NYC is insane.