Drysdale went back upstairs to call a brother and sister and to send a text message to her parents, Tom and Laurel Drysdale, who were on a fishing trip in Mexico. Phone calls soon came pouring in from her extended family, and word quickly spread that she was fine and not to worry.

But inside McBryde Hall, Drysdale's worries weren't over. Police were cruising the campus, telling everyone over loudspeakers to stay low and away from windows. The hall she was in remained locked until just after noon.

"Somebody said, 'We need to get out of here,'" Drysdale recalled.

She had to walk past Norris Hall to get to her car in a nearby parking lot, and on the way, a police officer told her to "stay as far away as you can, cut a wide loop around."

Drysdale didn't linger to steal a glimpse of the wounded or dead, whom she heard had been taken out of the building on stretchers and in body bags. She didn't want to see that, "not at all," she said.

What she did see was "ambulance after ambulance after ambulance" and police and SWAT teams everywhere. "I think that's when it started to sink in with people how serious it was," she said.

After a two-mile trip to her off-campus apartment that took 45 minutes, Drysdale and her roommate turned on the TV for news. The first report said 22 were dead.

"We both looked at each other and said, 'There's no way,'" Drysdale said. But the next channel reported the same thing. "We both were just astonished."

The Layton High School graduate, who was named after a fashion model, said the first day, Monday, seemed surreal to her. "You just don't feel like it's really happening here," she said.

She attended a candlelight vigil Tuesday night on campus that drove home the reality. "It was nice to feel that unity with everyone," Drysdale said.

As the names of the dead became public, they were no longer just numbers. They became people, students, colleagues, she said. "It gets harder."

Classes were canceled through this week, but some of her fellow biology lab students were going to meet Wednesday morning — until they received word of "suspicious activity," which Drysdale heard was a bomb threat. Her group called off the meeting.

Drysdale said she often will work in a biology lab until 2 a.m., then get in her car and drive home by herself. "I never felt unsafe or worried about anything," she said, until now. "I think for a few days, I'll be a bit more on edge."

She and other LDS students will continue to seek refuge at the small brick building on the corner of Washington and Kent streets. There, if needed, they can meet with an LDS bishop or a counselor through LDS Family Services.

"I think it will take a few days, but I'll get back into my routine," Drysdale said. "The chances of this happening again — it's still a safe little community."

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E-mail: sspeckman@desnews.com