Twelve young adults died when a wooden porch in Lincoln Park collapsed early Sunday morning; 57 people were injured. A high school classmate, Kelly McKinnell, was one of those who died:

Kelly McKinnell, 26, used her eyes and a gift for photography to affect those around her. Lynne Wellen, coordinator of the adult education program at the Latin School of Chicago, said McKinnell graduated from the Latin School in 1995.

She came back in 2001 to teach digital photography in the adult education program and was applying to schools to get a graduate degree in photography.

“She was a wonderful young woman. She really was. And she was a terrific teacher,” Wellen said. “Very full of life, very upbeat. An exceedingly positive young woman.”

McKinnell’s mother, Jean Ware of Barrington, said her daughter had just mailed her application to the Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara, Calif., on Saturday morning.

“She’s an only child … she’s my only child,” Ware said. “You just get numb.”

Kelly and I weren’t close, but everyone at the Latin School, which we graduated in the same year, was a lot closer than average because each graduating class had only 75 to 80 students.

She was a nice girl, and even back in high school — when she shot for the yearbook — an evidently talented photographer.

There’s a bigger spook to this for me because only last Monday I attended a friend’s birthday party, a barbecue held on a wooden porch. These are designed as walkways, not as places for scores of people to congregate. To be honest, it never occurred to me that it might not be safe, though there were perhaps only a dozen people at that party.

This is yuppie Chicago’s version of E2.