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Oklahoma City bombing remembered 14 years later (graphic video)
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April 19, 1995 was a soft spring day in Oklahoma City, OK, a capitol city that reflected the friendly, down-home culture of this heavily-rural state. At the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, children in a day care center settled in with their friends while parents worked in nearby offices.
Radios tuned in to country music in the town that claimed Vince Gill and Reba McEntire among its home-grown stars. There were plenty of things to do in the weekends ahead, a wide variety of choices including symphony and ballet performances, rodeos, museum exhibits and outdoor fun on Oklahoma's many lakes.
Native Americans in this multi-cultural state were gearing up for pow wow season, with Oklahoma City's Red Earth Festival only a few weeks away. Cowboys, farmers, and ranchers tended livestock and crops. Fishing, barbecues, youth sports, church activities and volunteer events filled calendars in a state where it's possible to be both busy and laid-back, a state that is iconic American life.
That quiet world of America's heartland shattered at 9:02 a.m.
Timothy McVeigh, later executed for his crimes, was leaving town when the Ryder rental truck he'd packed with more than 6,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate fertilizer, nitromethane, and diesel fuel mixture and parked in front of the Murrah building exploded. The impact was so great that it measured 3.0 on the Richter scale. As Wiki summarized:
The blast destroyed a third of the building and created a 30-foot (9.1 m) wide, 8-foot (2.4 m) deep crater on NW 5th Street next to the building.The blast destroyed or damaged 324 buildings in a sixteen-block radius destroyed or burned 86 cars around the site, and shattered glass in 258 nearby buildings (the broken glass alone accounted for 5% of the death total and 69% of the injuries outside the Murrah Federal building).] The destruction of the buildings left several hundred people homeless and shut down multiple offices in downtown Oklahoma City. Total damages from the bombing totaled at least $652 million.
The human cost: 168 killed, including more than a dozen children, and more than 800 injured, families shattered and friends sundered. Oklahoma City was in chaos, and the sounds of that day still echo in grieving hearts.
There'll be another Remembrance Ceremony today, with the reading of the names and 168 seconds of silence at 9:02 a.m. CDT. Meanwhile, bombing co-conspirator Terry Nichols continues his legal quest to be awared millions of dollars in damages because he doesn't like prison food.
The following video from Oklahoma City's TVR Communications contains footage and emergency service calls for help that day. Warning: it is graphic.
Image/historic photo of Murrah building after the explosion.
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