It was February 20, 2003. A late Thursday night concert had gone horribly bad in West Warwick, RI. I’m usually a sound sleeper, but for some reason I awoke at 4am that next morning and turned on the television. Horrific images greeted early morning news viewers. I could not believe what was before my eyes. The news reports at the early stages of this tragedy were stating somewhere in the ballpark of 19 dead, as I remember. My fellow colleagues/photographers Matt Stone and Robert Eng had already been down there for many hours. I would soon join them with a bevy of reporters, some who had also been there overnight. Once there, I took up a position where a Rhode Island state trooper told me to go. I was happy to see my friend Curtis Bailey, a Tv videographer. We were told that the victim count was now at 30. One of the first things that I noticed was the caring response by the fire and police officials who had the grim task of bringing out one, after another of the victims. After each person was carried out, a small semi-circle of officials would huddle and say a prayer. After about 35 of these prayer vigils, I turned to Curtis and said something to the effect of: “Wow, I think that’s more than the 30 or so (victims) that we had thought.” Curtis answered me by saying that his reporter, I believe to have been Amalia Barreda, had said she now heard the count was at a staggering 50. The Station Nightclub fire victim count grew to 100. Below are three of my photos from that morning.
