Oklahoma City Bombing: My own memories

Today is a somber day in Oklahoma City. Thirteen years ago today was the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building, the largest terrorist event in the US at that time. It is an event that will always live in the hearts of those of us who live in Oklahoma City. I am sharing some of my own photos taken at the time of the bombing. All of the following photos on this page came from my camera except the cross at night.

Here is a site created by people who are much better with words than I am. The whole experience is embedded deep in me but the feelings are so complicated. It was a great mixture of shock, grief, violation, fear, and anger. In addition, for me there was a feeling of intense gratefulness that my family was uninjured, but guilt for feeling that way when so many families were suffering.


My biggest memory of the day is that Andy worked at the Oklahoma County Court and in the initial chaos, one station reported the bomb hit the County Court. Even after the news was corrected I was still terrified because the County Court was less than two blocks from the Murrah building, and the entire area had been decimated. This is what the entrance to Andy's building looked like the day after.


Some of the lettering was blasted off the building from two blocks away. The whole downtown area was in shambles.


I was at work about 10 miles away and actually felt the blast, but thought it was somebody dropping boxes upstairs. After one of my coworkers informed me what the bang and vibration actually was, I headed for downtown but nobody was allowed in. It was several hours before Andy was able to call me. He and two other wheelchair-bound county employees were stranded for quite awhile on the 4th floor of the court because the elevators had shut down. Finally one of the supervisors came upstairs with an elevator key and brought them to street level. Andy was not allowed to get his vehicle out of the parking garage because of a rumor that there were more bombs present, so he finally hitched a ride home from one of his friends who had a big enough trunk for his wheelchair.

During those hours of worry a cruel hoax rumor spread that the daycare center was the real target of the bomber and additional centers were in danger. John and Shelby were at their daycare, so like thousands of other parents I retrieved them and took them home. John was six months old at the time, the same age as the littlest victim from the Murrah daycare, the last one found. That little soul was the son of one of Andy's coworkers.

After a sleepless night in which we stayed glued to the TV, Andy and I attempted to go downtown to retrieve our vehicle. We were allowed to enter the parking garage because the officer knew Andy from the court. The police were very leery of allowing most people into the area because of the possible threat of additional terrorism.






Our beautiful downtown looked just like a boarded up slum for months after the attack. The damage was incredible. Every window in a four square block area was blown out, and some windows were blown out as far away as eight blocks.



The city became an almost eerie place. We were participating in one giant wake. Almost every resident did something to help out; donating supplies to the firefighters, donating blood, passing out ribbons, contributing money, donating toiletries to the families waiting at the site. There were memorial ribbons everywhere. Every car had their headlights on day and night. Possibly the eeriest thing was that it occured to somebody downtown to light the Christmas cross on what is now the Chase building. The memory of that cross glowing in the middle of April still gives me chills. It felt as surreal as if the sun had risen from the west.

There is still a fence at the site, and every year thousands of items are placed on it. Mementos are now left there each September 11th in memory of everyone in this country who is affected by terrorism. But back when Shelby left her little animal on the fence, 9/11 was still in the distant future.

I pray that no other city will ever again have to live through this.