ROMULUS, Mich. – People dropping off or picking up friends and family at Detroit Metro Airport will see large yellow barricades lining the streets around both terminals.
The goal is to prevent another car from colliding with it, and the airport says this is just the beginning.
The massive concrete blocks, each weighing an estimated 9,000 pounds, were installed on Tuesday (Feb. 3) along the arrivals and departures lanes of the McNamara Terminal.
It’s the first noticeable change after a man drove his Mercedes-Benz through the doors of the terminal on the night of Jan. 23.
The driver, who has yet to be named as he has not been charged, was driving along the road outside of the terminal when he made a sudden 90-degree right turn and plowed through the glass doors and into the terminal, which was largely empty that night, eventually crashing into a Delta Airlines check-in counter.
The man emerged from the car, wearing an Amon-Ra St. Brown Detroit Lions t-shirt, yelling incoherently before being taken into custody.
He is currently undergoing a psychiatric evaluation.
Six people were injured in the incident, and while there were no fatalities, it could’ve been much worse.
“I’ve been with the airport for 27 years, and what occurred on Jan. 23 at the McNamara Terminal is unprecedented,” Chad Newton, the Metro Airport CEO, said on Wednesday. “It has definitely changed our security posture.”
The concrete barriers are similar to the ones used in places like New York City and New Orleans following a major vehicular attack.
The airport previously used steel bollards and large concrete flowerpots as deterrents, but the car plowed through the ones in front.
Additionally, any changes would need to account for structural issues at the airport.
The terminal is built like a highway bridge, with departures on the top and arrivals on the lower level.
Any security measures must be approved by the airport’s engineers to account for weight-related issues and to ensure that drilling into the upper terminal is not required.
“We’re continuing to work with the airlines and our internal teams to determine what is the most appropriate permanent barrier to prevent a vehicle from driving into the doors again,” Newton said in a statement on Wednesday. “Our first priority is to protect our visitors and employees from any such incident in the future.
“Rest assured: the airport is more secure now than it was last week,” Newton said.
More: New video shows 6 angles of driver crashing into McNamara Terminal at Detroit Metro Airport