“The dog’s already passed by three times,” says Michelle Parks, who looks relaxed as she sips an iced coffee. Her group of 30 friends arrived early for the flight and Parks has been waiting for an hour and a half.

“It’s like the SWAT team or something,” she says. “I like it.”

For Mary Murphy, an elderly woman traveling home yesterday to Brisbane, Australia, the visible security is particularly comforting as she is reminded of how close she came last week to tragedy.

Murphy, who speaks in a soft Australian accent, says she had originally planned to fly from Boston to Los Angeles early Wednesday morning and then take a connecting flight home to Australia. The two flights that were hijacked from Logan and crashed into the World Trade Center Tuesday were scheduled to arrive in L.A.

“I could have been in that plane,” Murphy says as she stands in the separate line for passengers preparing to board international flights. “My travel agent just goes on the computer and picks my flights. I would have agreed to anything. It’s just dreadful. It gives you goosebumps.”

The security is heartening, she says.

“I’m not worried, really,” Murphy says. “I just hope for the best.”