UMC returns to work, College of Nursing to reopen on Wednesday

There will be class in the College of Pharmacy, College of Medicine and Life Sciences North building today, although the College of Nursing will most likely not reopen until Wednesday, said University of Arizona Police Department Chief Anthony Daykin.

Students and faculty in these buildings were evacuated and taken to the "Swede" Johnson building by bus yesterday morning after nursing student Robert Stewart Flores Jr. opened fire in the College of Nursing, killing three people.

Traffic snarled around the UA yesterday as a result of the shootings.

The University Medical Center emergency department diverted some trauma patients to Tucson Medical Center and other medical centers until 4 p.m. yesterday.

TMC experienced a busier Monday than normal, although they had no trauma patients, said Mike Letson, TMC media relations spokesman.

UMC administrators asked that anyone who had a doctor's appointment scheduled for yesterday reschedule, said Kate Jenson, UMC hospital spokeswoman. UMC is scheduled to be open today.

Faculty working at the College of Nursing, 1801 E. Elm St., spent yesterday morning comforting nursing students who searched for friends and tried to get in touch with family, said Sandy McGinnis, an administrative assistant in the building.

"It's been really hard to work today," McGinnis said. "We've just been watching TV all morning."

Traffic also stopped for stretches around the Arizona Health Sciences complex.

Police blocked northbound and southbound North Campbell Avenue from East Speedway Boulevard to East Elm Street for most of the day, along with the side streets surrounding UMC. The roadblocks were cleared by early evening.

Students who parked their cars near UMC faced the problem of how to get back to their cars because police had roped off the parking lots surrounding UMC.

By mid-day, police began escorting students to get their vehicles, said UAPD Commander Brian Seastone.

As of late yesterday afternoon there was still a section of the parking lot south of UMC, near the gunman's car, that was blocked off by police, said Patrick Kass, director of parking and transportation.

UA Web sites ran slow and some were not working due to the system being overloaded with large numbers of readers searching for information on the shootings.

The Center for Computing and Information Technology said that the UA Web site, http://www.arizona.edu, received about 118,000 hits yesterday between the time of the shootings and 7 p.m. ÷ twice the hits of a normal day.

Web sites were not the only busy source for information regarding the shooting. UAPD and administration phone lines were tied up throughout the day.

UAPD received "too many" phone calls regarding the killings and asked that people stop calling, one dispatcher said.

President Peter Likins' office dealt with numerous phone calls.

"I've lost track because everyone is answering the phones. I can say that about 75 percent had to do with the incident and another 5 to 10 percent had to do with the McKale incident," said administrative assistant Mary Laubner. "But I have no idea at the number of calls."