City Hall
The City Bus Stop "together we thrive"
Tucson City Court
Fox Theater
St Augustine's Cathedral
I was at work, NW hospital, the day of the mass shooting here in Tucson. I was less than 5 miles away. I was there when the tones went off and the announcement was made: "Code Triage External", which to the hospital staff meant "disaster". We didn't have any other information, we didn't know what was going on, but we knew it was bad, it was really really bad. Then slowly we started getting pieces of what was going on. First we heard there was a shooting, next it was a political gathering, then Gabrielle Giffords was shot too, and then we heard she was dead. We would later find out that she was in fact not dead but that 6 others including a 9 year old girl were. A total of 19 people were shot in a Safeway parking lot that day, and the city of Tucson began to cry. Not one person was unaffected. Everywhere you went people were talking about it. The media were everywhere. Tucson was national news, a CNN headline. All ages were touched by the loss. If you didn't personally know a victim, you at least knew someone who did, or you knew someone who was there as a first responder or a medical employee who tended to the victims. Memorials were started and funerals were planned and as a city mourned the world watched and waited with baited breath for the Congress woman to recover, to speak, to move to do anything to give us hope. As for me and my family, we were very lucky that day! Gabe was moments away from being there in that parking lot. Gabrielle's Boutineer and coursage for her Winter formal was at the Flower shop right next door to the Safeway. At 10 o'clock he was driving on his way there to pick them up for her. He could have been there, he could have had my children with him, it could have been our nightmare but thankfully it wasn't. I had a tough time in the days following the shooting, thinking a lot about what could have happened and a lot more about what actually did happen. It was right there across the street from Gabe's office, less than 100 feet from door to door, it was so close to home. Things like this just don't happen in our hometown. It was very surreal. It helped me to take pictures. I grabbed my camera, and drove downtown and captured the city at it's finest. Flags were at half staff and the memorial was in full glory, it was very sobering and very comforting.
