A trick of luck and little else kept Emmaus High School graduate Doug Stroock from arriving on time for work on the morning Aaron Alexis allegedly killed 12 of his colleagues at the Washington Navy Yard, Washington, D.C.

The morning started off late with a head cold; Stroock was only just ready to walk out the door around 8:30 a.m. Sept. 16 when he received a text from a friend asking where he was, and if he was ok. By then, Alexis had already allegedly opened fire in Stroock's building on the very floor where he works every day.

Stroock responded he was fine; he was told there was a shooting at the Navy Yard and not to come in. On any other day at that hour Stroock would be walking through the cafeteria where shots had already been fired.

"It's particularly scary when you're a little bit separated out of it," Stroock said five days after the shooting. "Your imagination takes you to the worst possible places when you don't know what's going on."

The miss was incredibly close, and not just for Stroock. He heard of another coworker, a mother, who looked Alexis in the face before his fire narrowly missed her head. But the feeling of grateful relief for lives spared is quickly met by those of doubt and empathy in the aftermath and the challenge of living with grief after a tragedy.

"You feel lucky that you weren't there," Stroock said. "And on the other hand I have this guilt that I wasn't there. I probably should have been there. All of my friends and clients are going through this horrible experience. You wish you were there to support them. On the other hand I hope they don't hold it against me that I wasn't there because they went through this horrible thing."

Stroock has worked as a consultant for Naval Sea Systems Command for a decade, and has lived in Washington, D.C. for the last 15 years, where he moved shortly after graduating college and living in Emmaus for a year. He was living and working in D.C. when the Pentagon was struck on 9/11; he had friends and colleagues who worked in the building and clients in New York at the time.

For Stroock and others now, part of the challenge will be returning eventually to the building that is now a crime scene and the haunted site of a tragic loss of life. After 9/11 in New York, there were no buildings to return to. But the Navy Yard Building 197 is too big to knock down, and it bears the weight of history.

In the aftermath, Stroock anticipates the city's confrontation with the tragedy.

Growing up in Emmaus where he graduated in 1993, Stroock was part of a close-knit community. And places like New York and Boston after the marathon bombings are also places of strong community. In Washington, Stroock believes there is less of a built-in support system.

"D.C. is a very transient city," he said. "People come in and out, administrations change." He gives the impression of a city like a revolving door, officials and senators retiring or moving on from campaigns, whole teams abandoning the city to look for the next opportunity. And though Stroock keeps in touch with friends who have moved away, even commiserates with them in the wake of this tragedy, it is not the same as sitting together with them in the same room.

While Stroock acknowledges an element of fear in living in the nation's capital, he emphasizes living in constant fear is not a possibility.

"I'm in D.C. and you know it's a target– in the back of your mind, you know it's a target."

Even the ceremonial firing of cannon or guns at the Navy Yard for retiring government and military officials can sound like an attack if you're not expecting it, Stroock said.

But the emphasis is not on finding a way to live in a city with apprehensions, or work in a place that is haunted. Stroock anticipates going to the Yard again as early as next week, though he and others are working remotely for now. "How we as a city heal is going to be more difficult than in other places."