I will Never forget April 16, 2007

[Alan11]

After a week of grieving and anger on why all this happened, I finally have some closure on this entire ordeal after just spending an hour writing down a blog as you would say on what that Monday was like. I would like to share with you if you don't mind my April 16.

At 6 am the alarm goes off and the radio guy is talking about the weather, 50 to 60 mph winds are expected across the region today and expect major power outages over the course of the morning. Oh yeah the high today will only be 40. Another blah Monday morning back to work as usual. I get dressed, check my email and told my wife, if the wind gets too bad I will come home at lunch and check on the dog. Kissed her goodbye and headed off on my 3 minute trek to work.

I get to work and it is the usual half sleepy good mornings and I wish I would have stayed in bed today greetings I have become accustomed to in 6 years at my company. We have small talk as we usually do in the morning before we get started and then the lights start flickering on and off. This goes on until about 8 am and then it stops. Breaking news comes over the TV radios we have at work. Over 50,000 people in the Roanoke Valley are without power this morning due to the noreaster type winds we are getting. They go back to normal programming, that was the last time our network stations went back to normal programming. Life as we know it was about to change forever.

9:15 break time. Too windy and cold to go outside and walk, so I stayed at my desk and checked the news out on the net. One of the message boards I frequent mentioned a shooting this morning at 7:15 at one of the dorms. AJ, details were sketchy but it came from someone who got evacuated after it happened. One by one on the message board during my 15 min break posts were becoming more frequent on the shooting. Finally the VT.edu website reported a shooting did indeed happen and to be alert.

My break was now over so I emailed the info to my wife at work. A little after 10 am another breaking news report interrupts programming. We figured it was the wind and the power problems again. The news anchors this time sounded upset and distraught like something was really wrong. They reported a shooting had occurred in Norris Hall and there were injuries, that is all the information they had at the time. They stay in the studio and I continue to listen, word is slowly getting around my floor and people are starting to get a little nervous. The phone at my cube rings and it is for me, it is my wife. She had no idea at this point what was going on.

She called to let me know my brother and sister in laws road got blocked buy a giant tree this morning and my mother in law had to pick her up, oh by the way mom bought a brand new 07 subaru outback sport and its nice. My cube mate next to me has her internet going, 1 dead and 8 to 10 injured. I am completely silent. My wife asks what is wrong, I tell her check the link I sent you this morning. She checks it while I am still on the phone with her and all I hear from her is oh s*** Shelly and she hangs up immediately.

My sister in law Shelly is a student at Tech. She has a class on Monday's right next to Norris Hall where the shootings occurred. She also used to live on the 6th floor of AJ last year where the first shootings happened earlier that morning.

Right after my wife hangs up my entire team has stopped working at this point, and are on the internet or listening to their TV walkmans. No additional information will be available until the 12:15 briefing.

The local news stays on the air and around 11:30 my wife calls back. Shelly is ok, thank god my wife says. She got home late from Myrtle Beach and skipped the early morning classes. She is leaving at noon to head back. I told her watch the news for the update and call Shelly back and tell her to wait on leaving for now.

I get my lunch and get a table in the cafeteria for the briefing. The spokesman for Virginia Tech comes on and says I have some very disturbing news to give you right now. The entire cafeteria at this point goes silent. He gives the updated numbers, 22 dead and over 20 injured. We are so much in shock we don't know what to say. We thought the report was wrong, just this morning they said 1 dead and 7 to 8 injured. I get back to my desk very somber and shaken. The rest of my team finds out one by one and some begin to cry at their desks. One of my team mates frantically tries to get in touch with one of her relatives who is a student up there. Phone circuits to Blacksburg are jammed she cannot get through. Finally 2 hours later she finds out he is safe. By this point hardly a soul on our team is working and even our manager comes out concerned.

I get on the message board again and someone has posted, it is worse than what the news is reporting right now, I know someone at the rescue squad on campus and the deaths are more than being reported. Prepare to be shocked. The posts continue to come in to confirm the original posters quote. The phone rings again around 2pm it is my wife again.

She is upset and kept saying that could have Shelly over and over to the point where she starts crying on the phone. I tear up myself knowing at this point, that if Shelly would have went to class she could have been possibly walking through Norris at the time of the shootings as protection for the weather that morning. Then when we thought things couldn't possibly get worse the bomb drops on all of us.

The death toll is now 32 with over 20 injured. Even the news anchors who are always professional and show very little emotion in reporting events are beginning to get visibilly upset on the air. By this time I am totally numb and cannot even put a thought together. It is time to leave work now and I just sit in my car for 10 minutes wondering if this is all a bad dream.

I get home and my wife beats me there with the news on. Then the phone begins to ring, call by call family and friends asking if we were ok and how was Shelly. Some of these folks I haven't spoken to in quite some time. My wife's cell phone rings it is Shelly again. She is upset on the phone. My wife says whats wrong. She said rumors are spreading on who they think did it. If it is true he lived right down the hall from me. Turns out those rumors were true the killer lived on the same floor as she did. When we hung up the phone she was frozen. She told me what Shelly had said and I just lost it. Even a week later I still get chills knowing that she could have been in the middle of all this.

All I do the rest of the night is watch the news and take something to make me go to sleep. Didn't help at all. All I had run though my head the entire night was, Shelly should have been there, Shelly should have been there. I never in a million years thought I would have been happy to hear flooding and tornadoes made her late coming home.

I thank you guys in advance for letting me use this as part as a final closure for me on this day from hell. I have learned during the entire ordeal, that life is way too short to whine and moan over little petty issues, and to always make sure you tell your family you love them every day.

I didn't think I had it in me to write so much but when your trying to get the rest of your emotions out I guess you don't realize how much you have inside bottled up.

[springparrot]

but writing about this is healing.......and I'm so glad Shelly is safe.

[mommar]

((((((((((((Alan and Family))))))))))))

Glad Shelly's ok, and and happy that you had a place like BN to turn to when you needed it. BN is a healing place.

[CUparrot]

((((Alan))))

[SMLCHNG]

(((((Alan & Shelly & Family)))))) Oh my.

[Triathlete-Parakeet2]

Coulnt have said it better, Alan. I just got back from church. Trying to heal from this unimaginable event. Phin power from another Hokie!!

[phjrsaunt]

I understand, Alan. It's been a very bad week in Virginia. I don't think there's ANYONE in this great and beautiful Commonwealth who is more than one degree of separation away from a connection to Tech. Heck I can rattle off half a dozen links in the blink of an eye:
My sister in law is a retired professor
My sister is a graduate
My ex-brother in law is a graduate
My niece is NAMED Virginia, after the state AND the University AND so that her initials would be "VT"
Two of my best friends are also Tech grads...the list goes on.

I feel so terrible for all those families who lost children, including the killer's family. They have a whole 'nuther level of grieving to do.

You're right; writing/talking about it does help.

God BLESS the students and faculty for CARRYING ON tomorrow.

[fruityparrothead]

Alan11...so happy that everyone in your family is safe, and still so shocked and saddened that all of those innocent lives were lost.

All we can do is pray.