The Bus

Nov. 22, 2006

Starting this one with a disclaimer. I've had four hours sleep since Sunday at midnight, so please cut me some slack on grammar, spelling, and anything else. I would suggest that
you do what I use to tell my mom when I was a kid..."you know what I mean...don't you."

The call on the scanner ring with the clarity of a sterling silver spoon hitting a crystal glass.
"A school bus has gone over 565 and landed on Church Street."
A dozen or so people in the newsroom stopped what they were doing. Fingers quit hitting keyboards. Cell phones were put down quietly on planners. Reporters and photojournalists stopped work and pushed away from their desk and stood up. Standing up makes it easier
to hear horrible news when it's repeated.

The scanner crackled again.

"It's gone over 565 and it's on church street. There are priority zeros and priority ones"

Zeros are fatals. Ones are serious injuries.

The reaction in the newsroom was unlike anything I've ever seen in 26 years of television. Loud, rowdy, opinionated reporters who are not shrinking violets listened as the news of a school bus with children went off an overpass soaked into
their brains. Usually news of the day doesn't keep anyone up at night.
But the bus wreck of 2006 will leave many of us afraid to go to sleep at night for fear of what we may dream about.

A school bus. A vehicle that parents put children into every day to send them to school. A place to learn. A place to play. On this day, the bus turned into a tomb. And it was a story that
resonated through our community like a violently tuned metronome.

"Go, now. It's right there. You...go to the scene....you, go to the hospital...you...go to the school board."

Our assignment manager Keith Lowhorne ignited the coverage and jolted a newsroom into action.

"Amber, go to hospital now." Colby..Robert, get to the scene. Jeanine...call Wendell.
Need aerials. I'm calling now."

From there, almost eight hours of coverage unfolded. Ambulances delivered someone's baby and pride and joy to emergency rooms for life saving treatment.

We did a great job covering the story. But it comes at a price. Watching the pain of families endure four fatalities takes a toll. How we cope and manage that toll generally decides
how long we're in the business. I wonder about how someone like David Mattingly at CNN does it. For us, this is a once a decade type story and I will see the front page of the Huntsville Times for a long time as I go to sleep. David covers 15 stories like this a year.

What the story did immediately for me....was make me pick up the phone and call my daughter.
Knowing four fathers and four mothers lost a daughter is something I cannot fathom.
In fact, I called Emily three times on Monday. I will call her today. And I will call her again.
I'm at the point in my life where I'm trying to focus on calling people I care about more.

The bus wreck was the kind of story that the older you get, the more it stays with you.
The story is painful. Awful to watch unfold. But a wise man once told me that it's not just your pride, joy and happiness that makes you who you are....but it's your pain as well.
When I see the bus, and go to sleep and see that image, it makes me pick up the phone and call my daughter. And call her again. And again. And again.

Really tired. Going home. More later.