In the small, close-knit towns of Vermont, an unexpected death had devastated the town. Five have been beyond imagination. But that is exactly what this community have been facing after five local teenagers had been killed in a wrong-way driver crash Saturday night.

Almost everyone in town seemed to have known the students, they were friends, relatives, neighbors, teammates.

Governor Peter Shumlin told a crowd of more than 1,000 gathered on the high school soccer field on Monday night that it was the saddest day of his six years as governor.

Shumlin told the group that had assembled with less than a day’s notice at the school where four of the five were juniors, “There are no words to express the extraordinary sadness of this moment. But what we can rejoice in is that we have this extraordinary community.”

The five died on Saturday night heading home from a concert in South Burlington, Vt.

By Prakriti Neogi