The scene: "It was total and utter pandemonium with the injured being taken in people's cars as well as in ambulances to the hospitals."
They are the words of one of the first gardaí to arrive at the scene of yesterday's horrific accident which claimed the lives of five teenage girls.
Last night the single-decker Bus Éireann coach remained lying on its side in a ditch and crushed with it were the hopes and dreams of those five families. The accident happened about 4.15pm yesterday as the bus, carrying students from four secondary schools, made its way from Navan towards Slane.
It was meant to be bringing them home but within minutes it was the panic-stricken parents of the children who were parking their cars at the Garda cordon half a mile from the crash scene and running up the road in the hope of finding their child safe and well.
As they raced towards the crash scene the immediate sensory impact was one of noise: a series of ambulances with sirens blaring and lights flashing went in the opposite direction as they headed for Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda or Our Lady's Hospital in Navan.
The accident happened beside a stone cottage and the ambulance personnel and emergency medical technicians from the Health Service Executive North East immediately turned it into a makeshift triage centre.
Helicopters were used to transport medical teams from other regions but by the time they had arrived the seriously injured had already been taken to hospital.
At least one helicopter was being used by the media to get aerial shots of the crash scene.
The lucky ones were the walking wounded, wearing the uniforms of the four schools that had passengers on the bus.
The injured held hands up to sore heads and were led in a
daze to a waiting car or ambulance. When the last of the 51 casualties, including the bodies of the five girls, who were aged between 13 and 16 years, were removed from the bus, the scene was cleared and then sealed off by gardaí.
The plight of the passengers of two cars which had apparently collided just a few feet from where the bus ended up seemed to be forgotten.
As dusk fell other secondary school students arrived. These were fellow students who feared a friend had been on the bus.
"I was told a girl from my class was dead but she isn't. It is very sad for the families of the girls who did die," said 14-year-old Warren Bellew.
With him was 16-year-old Paul Flynn. "We are getting really emotional just walking up to it [the scene]. I knew a lot of those on board and to think some of them are dead. We just met another friend who told us not to come up here, it is too much."
One local, who knows some of the deceased, said: "This is just dreadful. It is terrible for everybody here. I drove this road this morning and I suppose because of that I knew there were roadworks."
Last night local clergy said they were getting ready to prepare for what will be very emotional funerals following what has been a tragedy of unspeakable magnitude for the community.
For a few hours yesterday gardaí, ambulance crews, firefighters and the national media invaded the population of this quiet rural landscape.
This morning they are gone and the locals will be left with silence, a scorched road and the memories of an afternoon, which left a legacy of devastation.