OMAHA, Neb. - If Wednesday had been typical, former Twin City resident Sally Elliott probably would have been shopping at the Von Maur where a gunman killed nine people, including himself, and wounded five others.

Von Maur in Westroads Mall at Omaha, Neb., is her favorite store, and she can be found there most Wednesdays for markdown day.

Knowing she came so close to being there when the shooting happened made her angry and uncomfortable, she said. And at least for now, it has made her hesitant to go back.

"Von Maur is honestly the only store I ever go to - it always has everything I want," she said, adding "I don't know if I'll go next week."

She said a mall like Westroads has too many entrances to make protecting against a gunman practical.

Michael McCracken, who has a Bloomington home but works as sales director for Westin Foods in Omaha, owned a restaurant at Bloomington's Eastland Mall for 15 years. He said it's not realistic to try to prevent such an incident in a place like Westroads, a three-story mall with more than 135 stores.

Still, people should remember that they are generally safe at malls and other public places, he said.

"People are going to go to malls tomorrow - and they should be," he said.

McCracken said mall store managers form a family of sorts, sharing concerns ranging from marketing to security.

"It was so innocent" he said of their security concerns years ago.

The modern focus on safety is reflected in how Eastland - Bloomington-Normal's only indoor shopping center - handles security these days.

Gayle Gleespen, marketing director for Eastland, said her mall has security guards who drive through parking lots and roam on foot throughout the building.

"We have interior and exterior security 24/7," Gleespen said.

Security staff would be the first to arrive if a shooting or other emergency happened, Gleespen said. City police would be called, and the security staff would try to keep the situation isolated and keep shoppers and mall employees safe, she said.

Efforts to reach management at Normal's Von Maur and the Shoppes at College Hills, an outdoor shopping complex where it is located, were unsuccessful Wednesday.

As for Elliott, she happened to be half a mile away from the Westroads Mall on Wednesday, buying gifts for clients of her interior design business when the gunfire began.

"When I came out at 1:45 p.m., everything was so surreal," she said. "The traffic and the overhead helicopters and the people running around and the police cars and the ambulances."

She initially thought it had something to do with President Bush being in Omaha that day, but then she found out about the shooting.

Elliott, former co-owner of Gracious Affairs, a bistro and catering business in the Twin Cities, also couldn't shake the feeling that she almost was there.

"It makes me very angry. It is just horrible," she said Wednesday evening. "It makes me uncomfortable."