From the window of a nearby building, Swedish exchange students Carl Nordin and Martin Avebro were bemused as they watched the commotion. They thought it was another bomb threat, like the two false alarms that had briefly shaken the campus in recent days.
Rolling a videotape (now posted on roanoke.com), Nordin and Avebro joked with the Virginia Tech students who joined them at the window, making fun of an overweight police officer.
"This is so cliche," a student told the Swedish visitors. "Your first day in America, you get this."
"It's just like in the movies," one exchange student said.
Their laughter stopped as students, escorted by officers, began fleeing Norris Hall, hands in the air. An ambulance was pulled up to the sidewalk and a still body, strapped to a gurney, was loaded in.
The rest of the campus was eerily deserted. Outside Norris Hall, all was a blur. "People running in and out," said Josh Ehlers, 19. "I'm still in disbelief."
The aftermath
The scale of the tragedy would not emerge for several hours.
At 10:16 a.m., students and staff got a third e-mail telling them that classes had been canceled. "Those on campus are asked to remain where they are, lock their doors and stay away from windows," it said.
At 10:52, a fourth e-mail described a "multiple shooting with victims in Norris Hall." Again, everyone was asked to stay inside.
It was not until shortly after 1 p.m. that Campus Police Chief Wendell R. Flinchum made this announcement: "We believe campus is secure." Slowly, students came out of their rooms.
Some went to Norris Hall. The sidewalk outside was stained with blood. In groups of twos and threes, others headed to counseling sessions held inside the AJ dorm. ROTC cadets gathered to pray at the War Memorial Chapel, on the vast green field at the heart of campus.
As the gray sky darkened in late afternoon, young men and women began to trickle out of AJ with pillows and stuffed animals under their arms. Some weren't sure where they would sleep. They just knew they didn't want to spend the night in that dorm.
By 6:30 p.m., Poor Billy's bar in downtown Blacksburg was half-full. The TV was tuned to CNN, but the volume was low, drowned out by classic rock: the Beatles and the Grateful Dead.
Ellen Strawderman, a 22-year-old senior, sat at the bar, drinking a Pabst Blue Ribbon beer. "It's just like this really weird dream," she said.
