Dewey Square consultant Kevin Mulvey was running the Boston Marathon on Monday in support of his late father, who died of liver disease. He raised money for the Liver Foundation and recruited staffer Zack Greenberg, a recent college grad, to run the marathon with him.
They were just approaching the final turn down Boylston Street as two bombs exploded.
“As soon as we learned of the horrific event at the finish line we spent several hours trying to locate them and one of their families,” says Mary Anne Marsh, a principal with the firm. “We are so grateful that all of them were spared and heartbroken for all that were not.”
The bombings in Boston left the city’s political consulting community turning to social media to check on family and friends caught up in the twin blasts.
Rob Eno, a direct mail consultant who runs the blog Red Mass Group, spent Monday trying to get updates about his father’s cousin who was at the marathon’s finish line in Copley Square.
Eno’s second cousin and his wife were injured by shrapnel that lodged in their legs. Their daughter, who was also at the race, suffered an ankle injury.
“I found out about my cousin within an hour of it happening because of Facebook. That’s how they kept information going,” Eno says. “It’s really amazing how it can bring people together.”
Gabriel Gomez, a Republican Senate candidate, was also running the marathon and passed the finish line shortly before the blasts. Gomez was with his kids about a block away when the explosion happened, according to a campaign official. His campaign quickly canceled a local event planned for that evening and shut down operations on Tuesday, as well.
In the wake of the explosions, which have killed three people and injured more than 170, authorities put downtown Boston into a state of lockdown, which included the offices of public officials. Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D) offices in the John F. Kennedy Federal Building in Government Center were closed to all non-staff shortly after the incident by the Federal Protective Service, despite being some distance from the blast site.
Meanwhile, Eno says traffic has been lighter coming into the city, but he says Monday’s blasts aren’t keeping Bostonians from moving forward.
“The people of Boston just keep going on,” he says.