CHICAGO — Silence.

That was the only thing noticeable on Tuesday. Not only on campus, but at O’Hare and downtown Chicago as well. Silence — an eerie, desolate silence.

O’Hare International Airport, along with all U.S. airports, closed its flights for security reasons, leaving thousands to search for lodging.

“I’m absolutely devastated,” said Scott Wiebrand as he waited at O’Hare International Airport. “I’ve never seen anything like this at O’Hare before. I’ve seen them evacuate one time, but that was only a three-hour ordeal.”

Wiebrand, who is also a baggage handler for O’Hare, said he and the rest of the staff were called early in the morning for a security briefing.

“They told us to be on the lookout for suspicious people,” he said. “They do stick out. This is a sad situation.”

Toy Hicks, a native of Thailand, said she hopes the situation will be over soon.

“I have to get to Bangkok to see my sister who passed away,” she said. “I’m scared; I don’t know about if there is an airplane tomorrow or not.”

Mick and Darlene Borka of Minneapolis, Minn., also were stranded at O’Hare with no idea of what they were going to do. The two were on their way to O’Hare to board a connecting plane that would take them to Austria when their plane was grounded in Madison, Wis.

Northwest Airlines then transported them to O’Hare by bus.

“We were scheduled to leave Minneapolis after 11 p.m., but arrived at the airport early, so the airline put us on an earlier flight,” Darlene Borka said. “Had we arrived on time, we wouldn’t be stuck here in Chicago with no place to stay.”

Another stranded passenger at O’Hare, Richard Capron of Cheshire, Mass., was waiting for a connecting flight to take him to Seattle, Wash., when the Federal Aviation Administration grounded all flights in the United States.

“I’m still waiting for my connecting flight to take me to Seattle, but I’m not really more concerned about my safety on the flight.” Capron said. “If anything, this incident probably makes air travel safer than before — at least for a while.”

Capron expected he would have stay the night at the airport because of the lack of hotel space.

“I guess I’ll just have to wait until the airport brings out the cots to get some sleep,” Capron said.

Downtown, security for buildings such as Chicago Title Insurance was increased substantially with state troopers brought in to keep everything under control.

“This whole thing is very shocking,” said Dan Hapke of Lincoln Park, who works in Chicago. “I just heard that a plane had hit the trade center, and I thought it was just a sightseeing plane or something. I thought the Sears Tower or the John Hancock building would be the next to go.”

Hapke said he doesn’t think that terrorism in Chicago is a problem, and he isn’t scared.

“You have to just keep on going,” he said. “After what happened today, that’s all you can do.”

Will Harrison of Chicago said he was overwhelmed with emotion at the time of the incident.

“It’s sad because American people got hurt, and these people had families, they had children,” he said. “These terrorists have no heart, no soul. I don’t know what they were

thinking.”