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A year later, Virginia Beach is still healing from mass shooting

A giant VB Strong flag waves nearby as people gather for the ribbon cutting of the VB Strong facility in Virginia Beach on Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2019.  In response to the lasting physical, mental and emotional trauma from the mass shooting, Sentara has partnered with the city to create the VB Strong Center, a space dedicated to providing community recovery and resiliency.
Steve Earley/The Virginian-Pilot
A giant VB Strong flag waves nearby as people gather for the ribbon cutting of the VB Strong facility in Virginia Beach on Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2019. In response to the lasting physical, mental and emotional trauma from the mass shooting, Sentara has partnered with the city to create the VB Strong Center, a space dedicated to providing community recovery and resiliency.
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Bullets flew into Bob Montague’s office a year ago.

He was so immersed in his work he didn’t realize what was happening at first, he said. It took a chunk of drywall hitting Virginia Beach’s Public Utilities director for it to click.

Sitting there, he could only wait and see if the gunman opened his door and took aim.

“To this day, I couldn’t tell you if it was locked or not,” Montague said of his door.

On May 31, 2019, a longtime public utilities engineer — one of Montague’s subordinates — roamed a municipal center office building with a handgun equipped with a silencer. DeWayne Craddock would ultimately kill 12 people and seriously injure four others before dying in a shootout with police.

The horrific event led more than 450 city employees to file for workers’ compensation benefits. Many suffered psychological and emotional trauma related to the shooting. Almost all have returned to work.

For Montague and others, going to work every day has helped them get through the past year. Employees have said the easy camaraderie of being shoulder-to-shoulder with dozens of colleagues who experienced the same horror has helped them start moving forward and collectively grieve.

The coronavirus pandemic has snatched away that reprieve, as many city staffers are now working from home as officials urge people to stay apart.

“You don’t have those connections, you don’t have those events, that way of feeling more connected — it’s been halted or taken away,” said Rochelle Hanson, director of training at the National Mass Violence and Victimization Resource Center. “That’s going to contribute to feeling alone and isolated.”

The isolation has made preparing for the one-year anniversary especially difficult. Sunday would be challenging no matter the circumstances, but it is even tougher during a pandemic that makes it risky for people to gather to grieve together. For many, the thought of that end-of-May horror, when Virginia Beach joined a tragic list of mass shootings, is never far away.

“There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think about who died,” said C.J. Bodnar, a public works engineer. “It’s at the forefront of a lot of our minds. We knew those people so well.”

To adapt amid the pandemic, the city had to cancel an in-person event to memorialize the day in light of Gov. Ralph Northam’s safer-at-home order. And city leaders are mindful employees may grieve differently. Montague said some people prefer to be alone, while others feel the need to be with someone.

For the four departments in the building at the time of the shooting, employees were allowed to stop working at 2 p.m. on Friday.

“I think it is going to be a tough day for a lot of us,” Montague said in an interview earlier this month.

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Virginia Beach Public Utilities Director Bob Montague is photographed at the Virginia Beach Municipal Center on Tuesday, May 26, 2020.
Virginia Beach Public Utilities Director Bob Montague is photographed at the Virginia Beach Municipal Center on Tuesday, May 26, 2020.

Far from normal

What happened last year in Building 2 was the deadliest shooting in city history. In normal times, experts would expect the anniversary to be difficult on city employees and residents alike. But these are far from normal times.

A pandemic not only boosts people’s stress, but it also increases the risk of someone withdrawing from friends and family as officials urge everyone to stay home as much as possible. For victims who lived through a mass tragedy recently, this means they could be alone, stuck in their own heads and replaying the low moments.

“We feel like we’re back in that moment,” said Robin Gurwitch, a psychologist and professor at Duke University’s Medical Center. “All of the things we felt in that time came rushing back to us on that first anniversary.”

After the shooting, Building 2 was closed and most employees were scattered at worksites throughout the city.

Drew Lankford, the naturally social public works spokesman, bounced around to different workplaces the past year making it difficult to get comfortable. He went from the city’s operation building down on Dam Neck Road to the aquarium to the agriculture department.

Now, like many others, he’s stuck at home most days.

“We’ve taken the divided group and subdivided it,” he said. “It’s not like we’re sitting around a desk and can bump into each other. It feels isolating.”

Bodnar, a stormwater engineer, is one of the few that still comes into the office each day because he can’t connect to his computer from home.

Sometimes, he’ll roam the hallways of Building 23 — his new work home — hoping to run into someone.

“It starts getting a little lonely,” he said.

CJ Bodnar explains the Stormwater Engineering Center's efforts to mitigate flooding in Virginia Beach on Thursday, January 16, 2020.
CJ Bodnar explains the Stormwater Engineering Center’s efforts to mitigate flooding in Virginia Beach on Thursday, January 16, 2020.

Bodnar, who was out last May during the shooting, said his team still has regular meetings in the office, bringing a temporary respite from the loneliness. Even working in silence next to a few colleagues makes him feel a little better.

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VB Strong

Employees feeling disconnected from each other has been a big issue the past two months, said Erin Sutton, the city’s director of emergency management and a key driver of the city’s recovery efforts.

The virus brought to a halt all of the pop-up gatherings at the Municipal Center or area parks that were happening, as well as the spontaneous get-togethers and happy hours that are a natural part of office life, Sutton said. Some people have started using Zoom calls to stay close to each other, but that option isn’t the same as the group being together, she said.

Right after the tragedy, Virginia Beach brought in different counselors and therapists for employees. An ad-hoc network of help also sprung up quickly. Much of that has now become centralized at the VB Strong Center, which is managed and run by Sentara. The center, which the city expects to get long-term funding from a federal grant, now offers roughly 60 services — from art therapy to one-on-one sessions.

Out of necessity, the city retooled its offerings following the onset of the pandemic. Instead of meeting in physical spaces near the municipal center, the VB Strong Center has transitioned to all-online offerings.

A giant VB Strong flag waves nearby as people gather for the ribbon cutting of the VB Strong facility in Virginia Beach on Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2019.  In response to the lasting physical, mental and emotional trauma from the mass shooting, Sentara has partnered with the city to create the VB Strong Center, a space dedicated to providing community recovery and resiliency.
A giant VB Strong flag waves nearby as people gather for the ribbon cutting of the VB Strong facility in Virginia Beach on Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2019. In response to the lasting physical, mental and emotional trauma from the mass shooting, Sentara has partnered with the city to create the VB Strong Center, a space dedicated to providing community recovery and resiliency.

Rosanne Foggin, the manager of the center, said the transition wasn’t especially difficult for her staff. The center itself was developed in uncharted waters, with no real example to model it after. They used that same creativity to adapt it to a virtual world, she said.

But activity at the center has significantly dropped since February when 394 people used its services. In April, only 111 did.

The reduction was expected, as everyone who seeks their help must now track them down online. There is no more walk-in foot traffic.

As the one-year mark approached, the center rolled out programs for coping with trauma anniversaries in a remote workplace — hoping to help people understand and normalize their feelings.

“Just because we’re having to be physically distant doesn’t mean we have to be socially disconnected,” said Benita Thornhill, the center’s licensed behavioral health therapist.

Experts were still worried how the anniversary would affect everyone. They urged people to reach out to the center.

Hanson, a professor who specializes in trauma treatment at the Medical University of South Carolina, said it’s “OK to feel scared and anxious and uncertain.” People just need to know when to seek medical help.

“I don’t think that there’s any way to move forward easily,” Montague said. “We do not have a playbook for recovering from an event like this. Everybody heals and recovers in different ways and at different paces.”

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Survivor’s guilt

Even those who weren’t in the building during the shooting have a long road to recovery and can suffer from trauma disorders. For Lankford, who worked on the third floor in Public Works but was out of the office when the shooting happened, his imagination has run rampant. He replays dozens of what-if scenarios regularly.

Could he have diverted the shooter’s attention and saved a friend’s life? Could he have grabbed a nearby baseball bat and bashed it through his head?

“I should’ve been there trying to help out,” he said.

Survivor’s guilt is real and its an issue many people face in the aftermath of trauma, experts said. Lankford said it’s gotten better over time as he’s seen a therapist and talked to his minister. But only a little.

What has lingered for many — including family members of those who died, city employees and the public at large — are the questions. While the shooter’s actions paint a fairly clear road map, he didn’t leave behind a note or manifesto. Officials have repeatedly said there is no clear motive.

An independent review of the incident showed the shooter was paranoid and grew increasingly isolated before the attack. At work, he had complained that he was underpaid, and was held to a higher standard than his peers. He submitted his two weeks notice the morning of the shooting.

“I’m an engineer like most of the engineers in the building,” Public Works Director Mark Johnson said. “Part of our trouble right after was, we solve problems and we figure them out. That’s what we do. But I quickly realized that there was no logic. You can’t apply any logic to what happened.”

In the weeks and months after the shooting, Montague said he did not focus on the why.

“I told my staff that we had somebody who lost touch with their humanity somehow, some way,” Montague said. “I don’t think there’s any answer or justification for anyone ever being in that kind of state of mind to do something that horrific.”

Montague has learned grief and anxiety happen spontaneously, and staff frequently need to abruptly leave work early.

“I’ve certainly gotten an even stronger appreciation of how folks are unique and how important it is to ensure that you recognize those individual differences and allow people to recover at a pace that works for them,” he said.

It is certainly not a loss he will ever get over.

“I don’t need a special time or event to remember,” he said. “We remember every day.”

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Resources for help

For anyone who is having a difficult time coping, there are several free resources available for immediate help.

The VB Strong Center can be reached at 757-507-7200 at any time.

Anyone in the country can text the Crisis Text line at 741741 to be connected with a trained crisis counselor.

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, which is is free and confidential, can be reached at 1-800-273-8255 (TALK).

Peter Coutu, 757-222-5124, peter.coutu@pilotonline.com

Alissa Skelton, 757-222-5155, alissa.skelton@pilotonline.com.