Never Forget

It started just like any other day... April 16, 2007.

Before I moved to Utah at the beginning of this year, I was the news director for a small news/talk radio station nestled in the heart of the Blue Ridge mountains of Virginia, about a half-hour away from the campus of Virginia Tech.

There was nothing in particular to set that Monday apart, except perhaps the weather. Unusually windy, with tropical storm force winds, on Monday my "top local story" in the morning show was about power outages and road closures from downed trees. It was also bitingly cold compared to your average spring day in the mid-Atlantic, where April is characterized by warm days and cool nights.

It seems odd, somehow, in retrospect, that we were worried about a few measly shingles that might have come loose from the roof in the face of the winds. That hubby was concerned over whether it was appropriate to call in sick on the first day back from Spring Break. That we couldn't find Sam the Boy Wonder's tennis shoes and had to send him to the sitter's wearing hiking boots.

It was probably two hours after the first shooting that we even heard about anything amiss on campus in the newsroom, as our scanners weren't usually tuned in to Blacksburg. So like the students, we received our first alert from the university itself, a little after nine.

It was an alert that would change our lives.

I don't say that lightly.

By 9:30, we had completely revamped our newscast. By 10:15, we were on the air with live, wall-to-wall coverage, no commercials. But we still had no idea just how far reaching this tragedy would be. All of us still thought we were dealing with a domestic dispute, an isolated incident.

How wrong we were.

Around noon, we got the first inkling of the enormity of what had happened, in a live news conference at which a pale, nervous official announced there were at least 20 casualties. By three p.m., the total count was at 30. It wouldn't be until later that night the number 32 would gain its infamy.

I wish I had been able, earlier in the week, to just turn off the TV. To stop listening to the scanner. To quit paying attention to the news conferences and constant flow of information coming from Virginia Tech. It is a luxury I did not have, doing what I do. I forced myself to watch that following Wednesday night, as NBC played those first horrible images of an angry-faced gunman, plotting his terrible deed. I knew I would have to talk about it the next day.

I wish they hadn't aired it. (Actually, I'm glad I didn't air it.) I'm glad I didn't work for a TV station and didn't have to make that judgment call. The journalist in me understands why NBC put out some of the images, but the me that had to live in the community that was so broken and torn, had to live with the reality, had to cope with the friends who are grieving and the horrible nearness of it... really wishes they hadn't shown so much. I especially believe the excessive, repeated airing of the material the next day, by all of the TV networks, was nothing short of insensitive. For those of us in southwest Virginia, the images were painful. They made us sick.

I wondered at the time if I would ever stop being shell-shocked by them. I know now, watching CNN and MSNBC and Fox replay them over and over on this anniversary, that I will probably not ever stop being shell-shocked at those images of a mad-man.

There were bright spots in the week of horrors beyond comprehension. The compassion, the outpouring of support for Virginia Tech from all corners of the United States, was truly touching. People sent countless e-mails and made untold phone calls to the station, asking how they could help. Friends and family from far and wide got in touch with me to make sure I was OK. An online friend I'd never met sent a sweet "thinking of you" card. I spent hours the Thursday afterward putting together audio memorials that the station aired, almost like an audible sympathy card. All of that helped.

The famed poet, Nikki Giovanni, spoke at a public memorial on campus that week and reassured the community we would prevail. She was right. We did... and we will.