I am just back from Las Vegas. The shooting is memorialized by a collection of flowers and candles, roughly the area of a parked car, in the median of Las Vegas Boulevard next to the Luxor casino. When I visited at 9:30 pm on a weekday there were a handful of people at the memorial.
Locals said that what was striking about the aftermath of the shooting was how quickly life returned to normal. People went to work on schedule. Tourists showed up for their helicopter tours to the Grand Canyon. I didn’t find anyone in this city of 2 million people who had actually been at the concert, but one of my Uber drivers had been nearby and took fleeing people away from the scene. Businesses everywhere displayed “#VegasStrong” signs.
To judge by Facebook and the media, people who don’t live in Las Vegas might have felt more personally affected by this event than people who live in the Las Vegas region.
I arrived the day after the shooting. People were definitely more somber that week than usual. Most of the people you will see, if you are a tourist, are themselves tourists with no special emotional connection to the city, but I was there on business and dealt with lots of locals and although life went on normally everyone was aware and the general vibe was “show respect, keep things serious, it’s ok to talk about but don’t make light of it”.
We area strong community and we are, VEGAS STRONG. God Bless us All