She has returned to Maryland for her sister's wedding, and Mechele Reese appeared to be somewhat relieved to leave Phoenix, Arizona behind for a few days with the highway gunman still on the loose.
"It's been very scary. A lot of people are nervous going down the I-10," Reese said. “I stay off. People stay off. There have been accidents."
Anna McMillan arrived on that same flight at BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport, and she lives just outside Phoenix in Chandler, Arizona.
"It's been stressful, because our children... my son, my husband... they drive,” McMillan said. “They live in Chandler, Arizona, and they have to take the 10 back and forth to work every day. I saw the other day it was white pickup that got shot and I nearly fainted, because my son has a white pickup."
While such fears may seem reminiscent of the D.C. sniper carnage here, Valerie Sarwark of Phoenix has lived through both, and she says there's no comparison.
"That was way more scary," Sarwark said.
"...No one's died yet. It's morbid, but it's the truth. It's all cosmetic damage right now, so..."
If anything, Sarwark says the I-10 shootings have brought back some of her memories of living in fear while the beltway snipers terrorized our area.
"I wouldn't even go to the gas station. I worked right off of Route 7 at Tyson's Corner and one of the incidents happened really close to where I worked and I was like, 'I'm not going to go that way. I'm going to go another way to the gas station,'” Sarwark said, “This morning I did say to my husband, 'Let's not drive on I-10."
Another big difference -- the so-called sniper in Phoenix has shot multiple times at various vehicles, but no one's been seriously hurt, which is a far cry from the deadly accuracy the D.C. snipers displayed here with a military-grade Bushmaster and training to match.
