A tragic loss

A weird thing happened Saturday night as we pulled out of Birmingham, Alabama after a day of shopping. The traffic was terrible and we were crawling at a snail's pace on the fringes of the city. We began to see blue lights and fire trucks and ambulances, and we assumed there was a wreck up ahead of us. It was a fire. The Days Inn in Hoover had caught fire, and the flames were shooting out of the roof. It was horrible. I think we were all saying a little prayer in case anyone was trapped inside. Me especially, because I'm terrified of fire myself.
Little did we know that, in a roundabout way, my husband and I knew the four students who died in the blaze. We found out today that they were students at our beloved university. We didn't know them personally, but when you go to a campus as small as ours is, it just doesn't matter. The four girls lived in my old dorm. Three of them were pledges in social clubs that I had friends in.
On facebook, I see the statuses popping up amongst all of us alums and our current students affirming that a storm of prayers is going on today. But my heart still hurts for them, and I don't even know what they looked like.