As the death total continues to climb, the terrorist attacks in Brussels have many scrambling to locate and communicate with family and loved ones to confirm their safety.
Recently Facebook implemented a safety check feature that allows people to connect during times of disaster, however do to the high volume of calls and mobile data being used within Brussels sending online messages was a challenge for some.
Owner of the Nouveau Chocolates store in Broken Arrow, Christine Joseph, is originally from Belgium and has dozens of friends and family members still living in Brussels and says she found our the safety of her daughter through “Whatsapp”.
“My husband, we had breakfast and he was on his way out to his car and he got a little ping on his Whatsapp and my daughter goes, 'we're okay'. We we're like what do you mean you're okay? Because we were watching the local news and the local news didn't have anything on. So he get's in touch with her and she says, 'we're okay. I'm at home I'm not in Brussels. She informed us about the bombing that actually had happened just a few minutes before,” Joseph said.
Joseph then got in touch with her cousin, sisters, mother, and as many other friends and family members as she could.
Joseph's says her first concern for the safety of her loved ones was travel, due to Belgium's robust transportation system.
“A lot of people work in Brussels. You just take the train or you take the metro and then you get to your destination and you walk where you need to be. Everything there is so crowded so full, so the metro was one of my first concerns,” Joseph said.
Currently Belgian government officials and law agencies are still on high alert shutting down roadways and travel until the safety of all area patrons can be confirmed and there is no longer a threat for more attacks.
However, the threat of terror attacks have plagued many countries for decades and Joseph says she doesn't know if she'll ever feel truly safe.
“My husband kind of laughed at this when I first met him because I told him I didn't want to have a blue passport. I remember when the planes got hi-jacked by the Palestinians in order to release some their people who were in jail in Israel and they usually kept the American people on board. They let everyone else go. Terrorism has existed in one form or another for a long long time, it just has become more global,” Joseph said.
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