Tri-state marathoners who ran in the Boston Marathon described a "surreal" experience of a joyous day interrupted by a terror attack that killed three people and injured more than 100 others as bombs exploded at the finish line on Monday.
"We heard and felt the first boom went off," said Stacia Rogers of Chelsea, who competed in the marathon with a friend. "When the second one went off, we were like, 'It's definitely an issue.'"
The blasts, which preliminary assessments indicated were caused by at least two small improvised explosive devices, sent competitors and race volunteers running amid a plume of gray smoke.
"We ran for the stairs, we ran down the stairs," said Rogers. "There was a gentleman who was injured, people helping. We saw the smoke and so we ran in the other direction."
The chaotic aftermath was equally harrowing for the friends and family who waited to watch their loved ones cross the finish line. Linda Ottaviano of Port Washington, Long Island, was looking for her friend Bernie Cunningham, also of Port Washington, when she heard the explosion.
"I thought the finish line structure had just collapsed, but it was really, really loud," she said. "You couldn't hear glass or anything like that. It was just a very, very loud crash. I hadn't a clue what was happening, because I knew Bernie was about to finish just then."
Ottaviano had seen Cunningham at the 21.5-mile mark, and was going to run to the finish line to watch her cross. But Cunningham was stopped a half-mile short of her dream, and then she couldn't find Ottaviano amid the commotion. It wasn't until Cunningham returned to the hotel two hours later that she found her friend sitting in the lobby.
Local
"We hugged each other and cried," said Ottaviano.
"We were both in tears," said Cunningham. "It was very distressing."
Tim Bellasari of Farmingdale was about a mile away from the finish line when he saw a "wall of people" ahead of him.
"People were coming the opposite direction and when I stopped, people just looked around and said, 'It's over, it's over,'" he said. "I found my friend who I was running with, and we got off the course as quickly as we could."
According to the marathon, more than 1,500 participating runners are from New York, 583 are from New Jersey and 419 are from Connecticut.
Bobby Asher of the Bronx, who ran the marathon along with 14 other members of the Van Cortlandt Track Club, had finished the race and was already back at his hotel when the bombs exploded about two blocks away.
"I went downstairs to find someone in the lobby, and a girl came in shrieking and crying and just distraught from down the street," Asher, 27, told NBC 4 New York. "It was just very obvious something was going on. That was the way we found out."
"It just seemed so surreal," he said.
Jeremy Klapper, 30, of Hoboken, finished the marathon around the same time and was at a bar about a block away on Boylston Street with his wife and some teammates. He said he "didn't hear a thing" but the bar was immediately locked down.
"At around 4, they said we could not exit the bar in the front," he told NBC 4 New York in an email. "We all were forced by police to leave through the rear, including the employees."
Klapper said he and his wife had planned to return Tuesday but changed their plans and returned on a train Monday night.
Security has been stepped up throughout the New York City metro area, including increased patrols on subways and commuter trains and at other sensitive locations like Times Square, the World Trade Center site and the Empire State Building, officials said.
Mayor Bloomberg said in a statement Monday that he was asking "all New Yorkers to keep the victims and their families in your thoughts and prayers."
He added that the department was fully prepared to protect the city.
"Some of the security steps we are taking may be noticeable,'' Bloomberg said. "And others will not be.''
Critical response teams, which are highly visible patrol units that travel in packs with lights and sirens, are being deployed throughout the city until more about the explosion is learned, chief police spokesman Paul Browne said.
"We anticipate keeping a robust presence in place until we learn more,'' Browne said. "There's a high level of concern about what happened in Boston.''
More than 1,000 counterterrorism officers were mobilized, along with the thousands of other officers on patrol.
Officers at Grand Central Terminal station were seen using radiation swabs and radiation detectors to search people's bags.
The New York Road Runners, operators of the ING New York City Marathon that was canceled last November following Sandy, said security was its top priority.
"We will continue to work hand in hand with the city of New York and the NYPD as we plan for upcoming events,'' the group said in a statement.
Asher, the runner from the Bronx, said Boston was his 10th marathon and he plans to continue to run.
"I've never encountered anything of this magnitude, of violence," he said. "I run in New York City races all the time. They always feel incredibly safe."
-- Greg Cergol and Tracie Strahan contributed to this report.
