Several Southern California residents were caught in the midst of the terror attack that killed 14 people and injured more than 100 in Barcelona on Thursday.
Two Southern Californians were caught in the middle of an attack in Barcelona after a van plowed through people on a popular tourist spot.
"I saw the van go by me and just mowing down everything in sight," Long Beach resident Robert Ortola said through FaceTime.
Ortola was visitng family in the city the past month when he witnessed the terrifying event in Las Ramblas, a popular promenade that attracts tourists.
"A lady basically was hit and went flying in the air and landed about three meters from me," he said. "I've never seen anything so horrible."
The Long Beach resident said he did not see anyone in the van, but witnessed it pass by and "hit everything in sight."
A Los Angeles resident, Jack Davey, was recording her escape as she ran away from the scene.
"We heard what sounded like gunshots and we saw hundreds of people rushing towards us," Davey said.
An Orange County student studying in Spain had just ducked into a restaurant in Barcelona's historic Las Ramblas district when she heard the sounds of something terribly wrong coming from outside the building.
American witness in Barcelona describes aftermath of van attack https://t.co/01KJSNJpF4
— NBC News (@NBCNews) August 17, 2017
Chrystle King told MSNBC that she saw paramedics and law enforcement personnel swarming the pedestrian mall after Thursday's terrorist attack in which a driver slammed through a crowd of people in the popluar pedestrian mall. King had been in the restaurant for about three minutes to use the restroom when she heard chilling sounds.
"I opened the door and there were people screaming and crying," King said.
She later learned a van had charged through the crowd, killing at least 13 people and injuring up to 100 in one of Barcelona's pedestrian malls. Police in Spain confirmed the intentional crash is a terror attack.
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King and others remained in the restaurant for at least three hours as police searched the neighborhood for the attacker. She notified her family that she was ok.
The attack left dozens of people sprawled out on the ground in the city in northeastern Spain, some spattered with blood and others coping with broken limbs. As witnesses and emergency workers tried to help the wounded, police brandishing hand guns launched a search of side streets.
One arrest was reported Thursday morning. Authorities provided no immediate information on the person or on who might be behind the attack.
Another Californian in Barcelona, Oakland product designer Rachel Mersky, told NBC News she was walking in the area when she heard screams.
"Suddenly, everyone starts screaming and running and falling over each other and crying, so clearly I started running too," she said.
Los Angeles singer Jack Davey was in Barcelona with her 5-year-old son, parents and brother Parker Jackson-Cartwright, a member of the Arizona Wildcats basketball team, which is playing a exhibition game Friday. They were in a restuarant when they saw a sea of people rushing in their direction.
"We heard what sounded like shots, and then we saw hundreds of people rushing toward us," Davey said. "We turned around and ran back out and ran out and ran 200 feet down from the Boqueria and were pulled in and locked down in a shop."
As they waited in the restaurant for things to calm down, they met another family from the United States who witnessed the crash.
"They were inconsolable," Davey said. "We hugged each other and we prayed together for a while."
"It was mass chaos."
They eventually made a run for it to their car and returned to the basketball team's hotel.
"People keep asking me, 'Are you ok?' Let me be clear. We are safe, but we are not ok," Davey said. "There's no way to reconcile this right now."
Police immediately cordoned off the city's broad Las Rambles avenue, which is popular with tourists, and ordered stores and nearby Metro and train stations to close. They asked people to stay away from the area so as not to get in the way of emergency services. A helicopter hovered over the scene.
Las Ramblas, a street of stalls and shops that cuts through the center of Barcelona, is one of the city's top tourist destinations. People walk down a wide, pedestrian path in the center of the street but cars can travel on either side.
Spain has been on a security alert one step below the maximum since June 2015 following attacks elsewhere in Europe and Africa. Spanish police have also been involved in the arrests of more than 200 suspected jihadis since then.
Cars, trucks and vans have been the weapon of choice in multiple extremist attacks in Europe in the last year.
The most deadly was the driver of a tractor-trailer who targeted Bastille Day revelers in the southern French city of Nice in July 2016, killing 86 people. In December 2016, 12 people died after a driver used a hijacked trick to drive into a Christmas market in Berlin.
There have been multiple attacks this year in London, where a man in a rented SUV plowed into pedestrians on Westminster Bridge, killing four people before he ran onto the grounds of Parliament and stabbed an unarmed police officer to death in March.
Four other men drove onto the sidewalk of London Bridge, unleashing a rampage with knives that killed eight people in June. Another man also drove into pedestrians leaving a London mosque later in June.
