BANGOR – In his 50 years of managing the Bangor bus terminal, Arthur Brountas had never received a call like he did Wednesday morning notifying him that the entire Greyhound bus service had been shut down.

“We’ve shut down service in certain areas for weather and things like that, but never all the buses across the nation,” Brountas said Wednesday from his modest office in downtown Bangor.

Service across the country came to a halt just after 7 a.m. Wednesday as word spread of an attack on a Greyhound bus in Manchester, Tenn.

Officials there said a passenger sliced the throat of the bus driver. The bus crashed, killing six other passengers. According to reports, the driver survived, but the alleged attacker died in the crash.

As planes across the country were grounded after the attacks in New York and Washington, D.C., on Sept. 11, Greyhound officials quickly ordered all buses on the road to the nearest bus terminal and canceled all trips for the morning.

Bus service resumed, however, at noon.

“I think if this had happened before Sept. 11, they wouldn’t have shut down service,” Brountas speculated. “But you know when they grounded all flights on that day, they think they may have saved other cities from being attacked and I think that Greyhound just wanted to make sure this wasn’t a terrorist attack.”

In Bangor, a 5:45 a.m. bus left as scheduled, but the 8 a.m. bus to Boston and then New York City was canceled, Brountas said.

Of the 14 passengers with tickets for that bus, a few pitched in and hired a cab to take them to Boston. Others chose to go back home and catch a bus today.

Brountas said the shutdown did not affect Concord Trailways in Bangor and that company agreed to take on some of the Greyhound passengers.

Andree Brouyere waited it out at the Bangor terminal and planned to hop on the 12:40 p.m. bus to Boston. Brouyere, who had spent a week visiting friends in Bar Harbor, said she had planned to get home to Montreal at 9 p.m. Wednesday, but now was scheduled to get in at 7 a.m. today.

Surrounded by her suitcases in a plastic terminal chair, Brouyere was taking the inconvenience in stride.

“Considering the circumstances, I’m grateful they made the decision they did. They have to put safety first and I think it was a wise decision until they could know for sure it was safe,” she said.

Brouyere said she chose to wait it out in Bangor, because “I’d rather be here in this small terminal than in Boston.”

Brountas, meanwhile, got back to work getting tickets out to those who began lining up for the afternoon buses.

“I don’t know what they may decide to do. The world has changed. Travel has changed,” he said.

While there used to be no luggage checks or carry-on checks at Greyhound, Brountas said that now spot checks were conducted.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen. Nothing like this has ever happened, and who knows what changes it may bring?”