Twenty minutes later, she watched panicked mothers and fathers race on foot to the school, clueless as to whether their children were dead or alive.
“You just see these moms running up the hill, and I’m thinking that has to be the hardest, tallest hill they’ll ever have to climb,” she said.
Adam Lanza is suspected as the gunman who killed 26 people, many of them children. Lanza also is suspected in the shooting death of his his mother, Nancy, at their home.
Manna’s son, Rob, who took firefighter training in Dayton and was in the area a few years ago to take the vehicle extrication course at the Montgomery County Fairgrounds, spent early Friday morning building a stone wall along a sidewalk just around the corner from Sandy Hook.
The firefighter declined to describe what he saw, but admits the tragedy hit parents especially hard.
His mother said on Saturday he burst into her store five minutes after it opened and squeezed her in silence. It was the first time he had seen her since the shooting.
“All I wanted to do was put my arms around him this morning, which I did, and give him a hug. My heart goes out to all of the first responders,” said Linda Manna, owner of The Country Mill.
The firefighter “saw everything,” but said he was doing fine after witnessing the aftermath of the massacre.
“I’m doing OK. I think it’s a lot harder for any of the people with kids,” he said.
Linda Manna debated whether to open her shop, but decided the sense of community it provides trumped anything else.
“I thought if people could walk in and feel comfortable and kind of ease their mind … then it was worth opening. It’s just nice to be able to have some place to go and talk to somebody,” she said.
Hundreds of grieving community members gathered at St. Rose of Lima Church on Friday night, huddling in pews and outside in the cold.
Families lit candles and offered stuffed animals to make a memorial for the 20 children killed at the beginning of their school day. Others wrote messages to the victims and their families on a handful of large white poster boards.
Connecticut State Police still had the roads surrounding Sandy Hook closed the day after the shooting, saying the school and the neighborhood directly around it are part of their crime scene.
Along highways leading to and from the Newtown, billboards speak to thousands, reading "Our hearts and prayers are with the victims and families of the Sandy Hook Elementary School Tragedy."
Community members put up Christmas decorations in downtown Newtown two weeks ago. Now, the garlands and bells seem out of place in a town consumed by grief. Linda Manna says her heart aches when she remembers the children delighting over the tree lighting two weeks ago.
“To think those little ones were standing looking up at that tree so excited about Christmas, and those little angels are not with us now,” she said.
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