Mourners at a vigil for the victims of the deadly shooting in Las Vegas, on Oct. 2, 2017.Hilary Swift/The New York Times
When Heather Graham left her home on Tuesday, it was the first time she had stepped outside since running for her life as bullets rained down on the Las Vegas Strip.
An avid country-music fan and Toronto native who has lived in Las Vegas for nearly four years, Ms. Graham was in front of the stage for the Route 91 Harvest Festival on Sunday night when shots rang out on the crowd of 22,000 concertgoers. Separated from her friends, she dashed through back streets to her car as gunfire continued for several minutes, not knowing whether she was heading toward more danger.
But by Tuesday, Ms. Graham decided she had given enough of her energy to being afraid. She got dressed, went out to eat, planned to go for a hike and then head to one of the many blood banks set up around the city.
"I don't want to live in fear," she said. "Any more that you give to [the shooter], he's winning. He's already done the worst and if you keep letting him ruin your day then he's continuing to take over your life. I'm sorry, but he's done enough."
Two days after the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history, which killed 59 – including at least four Canadians – and injured at least 520, Las Vegas was gradually picking up the pieces of a shattered city. Residents flocked to several vigils set up by the city and local churches. City officials said blood clinics were overwhelmed with the number of donors turning up to give blood. An online GoFundMe account set up to raise money for victims of the shooting had raised $3.7-million from 53,000 donations.
Slowly, the city has started to regain a sense of normalcy. But residents of Las Vegas are still struggling to process what has happened. "The world has changed," said Clark County Sheriff Joseph Lombardo. "Who would have ever imagined this situation? I couldn't have imagined it."
For cousins Claude Wilson and Alvin Bibbs, their trip to Las Vegas was the culmination of years of waiting. The two Detroit natives had never visited the city before and never taken a plane before. They arrived on Sunday with four other friends and relatives.
That night, Mr. Wilson was standing in front of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino when he heard glass breaking above him and then the sound of rapid gunfire. The shooter had opened fire from a room high above. Mr. Wilson started running and was given a ride by strangers who dropped him farther north at a different hotel, which is where he spent the night. As the casinos and hotels went into lockdown after the attack, the whole group was separated: His aunt spent the night with strangers who offered to share their hotel room while another cousin and friend were stuck at a different hotel.
On Tuesday, they planned to do what they could to salvage their last day in the city, taking in sights such as the "Welcome to Las Vegas" sign. But the fear Mr. Wilson felt on Sunday night wasn't going anywhere. "I would not come back any time soon," he said. "We're a part of history, but it's a history I don't want to be a part of."
At the Mandalay Bay hotel – where shooter Stephen Paddock, 64, unleashed his terror from the 32nd floor – gamblers were starting to return to the casino floor.
"It's horrific, but walking around here people are carrying along as normal," said Steve Harper, who arrived at the Mandalay Bay a day after the shooting on his first visit to Las Vegas from Southampton, Britain.
Mr. Harper has seen this before, in the aftermath of the terror attacks that struck London and Manchester and he sees the same response from a shell-shocked city gradually returning to routine.
"The roads probably tomorrow or the day after will be back to normal and everybody will be going about their business," he said. "It's becoming normal, almost. And that's not good, is it?"
On the eerily quiet Las Vegas strip, which remained closed to vehicles, local residents came on foot to pay their respects at the concert grounds. Josh Cunanan of nearby Henderson, Nev., used his first day off work in nearly two weeks to visit to the site of the shooting.
Two of his friends were shot, one in the back and one in the arm, and Mr. Cunanan wanted to come down to see scene of the carnage first hand.
"Everybody is going to move on from it eventually, but right now everybody is scared for their life," he said.
"What happens if I go into a store right now, is someone going to shoot me? Everyone feels the tension."
Mr. Cunanan is aware that the deadly shooting has reopened the debate about gun control in the United States. Like many in Las Vegas, he is concerned that a single shooter was able to amass and modify an arsenal of weapons capable of killing and injuring so many, including his friends. But he is also deeply worried about what the calls for tougher gun laws will mean for Nevada, home some of the most gun-friendly laws in the United States.
"I don't think that the government should take our guns from us," he said. "There are more people that have guns that want to use them do good and help other people than there are people who want to do bad."
President Donald Trump, who is expected to visit Las Vegas on Wednesday, said he planned to talk about gun control "as time goes by." Asked about controversial pending legislation to ease restrictions on purchases of gun silencers, he said "we'll talk about that later."
Republican leaders echoed that sentiment on Tuesday, calling for prayer but saying it was too early to discuss tougher gun laws.
"I think it's premature to be discussing a legislative solution," Senate Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters. "I think it's particularly inappropriate to politicize an event like this, which just happened in the last day and a half."
Las Vegas native Dana Ledford has a permit to carry a concealed weapon and has let her two young grandsons hold an empty clip so they could understand the difference between a toy gun and a dangerous weapon.
She considers better background checks and more resources for mental-health programs to be better solutions than stricter laws. "It's the person behind the trigger that you've got to look out for," she said.
After seeing the carnage first-hand, Heather Graham disagrees. "Why does anyone need a machine gun," she asked. "Why does anyone need anything that can kill so many people?"
With reports from Reuters and Joanna Slater
Tamsin McMahon