The Erhardt family was checking their rental car in when shots sounded in the baggage claim area of Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.
After a 10-day vacation in Florida the family of four was ready to return to home to Colorado to sleep in their own beds but the events that transpired on Jan. 6 would force them to stay an extra two days in Florida.
Jason Erhardt, a 1991 Wayne High School graduate, and his wife Kelli had made several stops around the state while the family was on vacation, including Orlando, St. Pete's beach and Key West before heading north to Fort Lauderdale to fly home.
The family had no intensions of staying in Fort Lauderdale - they wanted to board their plane and head home, but it all changed when an active shooter disembarked from his flight, collected his checked baggage, entered a bathroom to load his weapon and opened fire in the baggage claim area of the airport.
"We had just gotten to the rent-a-car place, just turned it back in and were going to hop on the shuttle to go check into our flight," Jason Erhardt said. "That's when everything went down."
Five minutes doesn't seem like a long time, but it was enough of a buffer that the Erhardts never actually made it into the airport to check in.
"Everything happened pretty fast actually. Everything was shut down immediately," the 20-year police officer veteran said. "There was no traffic in or out. They even told all the shuttles to cease moving."
His wife's phone went off with an alert saying there was an active shooter in the Fort Lauderdale airport, but it had no details beyond that.
"We weren't certain how big it was and it didn't say where in the airport it was."
It was that confusion that had people running onto the tarmac, behind vehicles and hiding out in the airport, not knowing how many, where or the extent of the incident.
Flights initially showed being on time, but that quickly changed, as times posted delayed or cancelled all together.
"I thought to myself 'there's no way they're going to be on time with all of this going down, it being a major crime scene.'"
The Erhardts stayed put at the rental car check in, playing the waiting game, still not sure the extent of the damage done.
"There were maybe 5 to 10 choppers overhead, so we knew it was going to be a serious thing," he said. "We watched just non-stop cops and firemen flying in there."
And part of the impressive response was due to the talk of a second shooter on the grounds.
"Someone actually thought there was a second shooter at one point in a parking garage. And then they thought there was another active shooter going on - which there wasn't - and that made it much worse."
The knowledge Erhardt possesses as a police officer was a benefit for him, allowing him to remain calm. There were mixed emotions, he said, commenting that people not knowing how bad it was really had an effect on their emotions.
Erhardt said his wife was upset, and justifiably so, but his law enforcement career in Denver had him used to dealing with threatening situations regularly.
Watching the live feed on the television, the Erhardts learned people were stuck on planes for six to seven hours, the highway coming into the airport had been shut down so all the traffic was stopped there. Even those in the cruise ship port were halted in their tracks.
Erhardt said they lucked out in more than one way, stating that because they hadn't made it into the airport yet, they were able to take a cab out and swap their flight out to Sunday, Jan. 8. They managed to scoop up a hotel room quickly as rooms were going fast.
Eventually busses were brought in to get people out of the terminals. Having no transportation in or out required law enforcement to bring in the busses.
When the family got to the airport on Sunday, it was business as usual for the most part.
Unclaimed luggage sat in a pile waiting for people to recognize their own pieces that had been abandoned in the chaos.
An increased police presence reassured passengers, but things moved quickly as far as check in, Erhardt said.
Given that the gunman's weapon had been checked baggage, not carried illegally on board, Erhardt didn't feel there could really have been more that could have been done.
"He had even checked his gun in, and when he got out he went and got his gun out of his bag and loaded it in the bathroom and came out shooting. It's one of those things that you couldn't have prevented," Erhardt said. "There's no way to really prevent that, I guess. There's not security at that point. There's security at the beginning of the airport, not at the end."
Erhardt reiterated that this situation wouldn't have been easily prevented -- stating that anyone could have driven up to that area and walked in to do the same thing.
But he also said that he was sure things would change now, with security at least.
"They're talking whether they should do security even further out -- you know when you drive into the airport, that'd you'll have to be checked in type thing, so that could be."
The experience hasn't deterred the Erhardt family from future travels though, he said, commenting that he still believes in the system.
Statistics say this was a chance happening, but when you're in the midst of it, statistics don't matter much.
"There's really no way to prevent this. There's always radicals out there," he said. "In the end it was just unfortunate that it was what it was, but it could have been worse."
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Gunman Esteban Santiago departed from Alaska where he lives and works as a security guard a day after speaking with his brother in Puerto Rico saying he'd like to visit, but never said his plan was to leave the next day.
Once Santiago arrived in Fort Lauderdale after a connecting flight in Minneapolis, he retrieved his checked baggage -- a Walther 9 mm handgun and two magazines before entering a restroom in the airport.
While inside, Santiago loaded the pistol and reentered the baggage area before opening fire. He was able to fire 10 to 15 rounds before he was out of ammunition.
By the time the first deputy approached him, Santiago had already dropped his weapon and laid down in surrender.
The Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel was quoted as saying the airport was policed properly and the shooter was arrested within 76 seconds of opening fire, something he considered to be a timely response.
Airport security expert Anthony Roman conducts risk management investigations stated that things clearly went wrong because there weren't deputies in that area of the airport.
Both local and federal authorities are now looking into the airport's security and whether there were adequate staff numbers during the shooting.
Seconds matter in a situation like this, Roman stressed. He said if one armed deputy had been in the immediate area at the outset, it could have created at least one obstacle for the shooter, which would have given passengers more opportunity to escape harm's way.
In recent years, Broward County had cut deputies and traffic officers, despite the increased use of the facility and the opening of an additional runway at the airport two years ago that drew in even more traffic.
Police calls to the facility had doubled over the past decade but airport positions had been cut, seemingly facilitating the right conditions for the worst airport attack in U.S. history to take place.
Santiago was taken into custody without incident and confessed to the shooting which killed five people and wounded six others.
The phrase "slipped through the cracks" has been used to describe Santiago's case, as he visited the Anchorage FBI office in November of 2016 to tell them the government was controlling his mind and forcing him to watch ISIS videos.
Santiago was found to have no terrorism ties and was turned over to local authorities who took his weapon and sent him to a hospital for several day to undergo psychiatric treatment.
His gun was returned to him in early December after being deemed not mentally defective.
Santiago had served in the Army for about 10 years and had done a 10 month tour in Iraq from 2010-11. Family members stated that Santiago returned a different man, hearing voices and having visions frequently.
He is currently being held in federal custody in Florida while awaiting his arraignment, scheduled for Jan. 23.
**This article included information taken from cnn.com, usatoday.com and miamiherald.com**
