Wow. I stopped by this morning and saw this thread, and it just doesn't seem possible that it has been 15 years already.
I was a Junior in H.S. when it happened. I had taken a day off, so to speak :) and had went home and back to sleep. Several people recall actually feeling the blast, I don't remember feeling it, but I did wake up about that time, so I may have. My Mom worked in the north part of OKC at the time and of course, they did feel it. She called me as soon as it happened and I remember turning the news on and just being awestruck by the footage.

I agree with Dawn, one of Oklahoma's finest moments came in the wake of tragedy. The strength and resiliency of the people of this state and the outpouring of support by the citizens of OKC, the entire state and really, the nation was absolutely inspiring.

I'll also agree with Dawn about the Memorial and Museum. I went downtown, just a few months after it happened, when there was nothing there, but a chain link fence lined with stuffed animals, flowers and notes. It felt like sacred ground then and it still does to this day. Definitely a must see and I'm glad they were able to build such a tribute to all those we lost that spring morning.

My thoughts and prayers to the survivors and the families of those that perished.

Michelle

Dawn,
I'm watching the Bombing Memorial Service at this moment and it still brings tears to my eyes. You worded it so well when you said it was both Oklahoma City's worst day ever and finest moment. And as good things almost always come from bad things, it definitely did pave the way for NYC when they were faced with 9/11. I pray that our nation will never need to face another event like either of those.

I work at a large Oklahoma City hospital that's about 15 miles from the bombing site. I was in the basement at the time and heard the blast, felt the building shake, and felt a rush of air in the corridor. I was talking to a co-worker and we looked at each other, both asking "What was THAT?" at the same time. Immediately I returned to the 4th floor where my office was and looked out the window toward downtown and saw the enormous clouds of black smoke rising from the downtown area. We speculated it was a gas explosion, and when we first heard the news announcers say it was "possibly a bomb blast" it was terrifying. Another vivid memory is the long line of doctors forming outside the Emergency Department as they arrived and prepared to treat victims, standing there with somber faces, expecting a large influx of patients. However as it turned out the large number of victims expected didn't develop as so many were still, sadly, buried in the rubble.

Fortunately my family wasn't directly affected in the sense of having a family member killed or injured, although we did know people who were. But everyone living here was affected by the horror of it.

Thank you for bringing this up, Dawn. As sad as it is, it's something our state and our nation always needs to remember. I think it's good that the bombing will now be included in teaching Oklahoma history in schools, now that so much time has passed that those entering high school now were born after the bombing (hard to believe!).

Suzie

My husband and I were working in the Temple in Dallas, and of course, had no knowledge of it. Someone who had watched it on TV came there and told us because they knew we had children in OKC. We called and called but couldn't get anyone on the phone. We left Dallas and continued to call. Eventually we learned that they had not been close to the blast, but had felt it of course. My daughter said she had been in that building the week before, and about the same time of day.

It was a horrible day for those who lost loved ones and it was also a horrible day for Oklahoma and our country. It took away our innocense, so to speak. Never again, will we feel as safe or free from harm as we did before that day. That is what terrorism is...it simply creates the need to live in fear. It reduces your comfort zone. It causes you to lose trust in your fellowman.

I grew up in a time when you could walk the few blocks from home and go to an afternoon matinee and not be afraid. Now you can't let a child leave the matinee to go to the restroom alone. We have to have pay-at-the-pump gas, not only so people don't drive off without paying, but also because you can't leave your children in the car while you walk inside to pay for the gas.

I think that I must have a simply mind, but it seems to me when you take God out, that you put fear in. I would like to see a nation that worries less about bombing components, gun control, dangers of global warming, and more about "people control" and moral decay. I loved the free country where family values were actually practiced and were not just words that were thrown around in order to win an election. I am not concerned about offending a visitor into our country. If they are not here legally then let then go back home and fight to change their own country. We liked ours better before they came. Am I predigious, not at all, but I do believe in obeying the law, and as of today, that is still the law.

This message will probably be removed from this forum before the sun goes down.

I was working as a temp at Fred Jones Manufacturing, about of mile, as the crow flies, from the Murrah building. The week before our fire alarms had gone off. Someone on the third floor had run into one of the sprinklers with a forklift. Because of all the volatile chemicals present in the building, once the alarms went off we had to evacuate, even though we knew in five minutes what had happened. But alarms in our building went off simultaneously at the nearest fire station so we were required to wait until we had an all clear from the firemen before we could return. When we felt the blast we just figured this time someone had dropped a forklift. We got up and prepared to head downstairs expecting to evacuate again. On our way to the stairs we looked in the offices to the east to see if they, too, were preparing to leave the building. ThatÂs when we saw the smoke and all the papers flying around in the street below us. All the plate glass windows on the ground floor shattered, and you could smell the stench. Many of the smaller windows on the upper floors were cracked, and the blast put a crack in the east wall of the building, originally completed in 1916, that was not there before.

Two of the men I worked with lost their wives. They both worked for HUD and were at the sign-in desk when the bomb went off. One had been married about 12 years at the time. They had spent most of their first ten years of marriage trying to have a child. Finally, about a year before the bombing they had a little boy. Until about a month prior to the bombing he had been in the day care center in the Murrah building. They had taken him back the week before the bombing for a birthday party. They took lots of pictures of all the kids at the party. He was asked to take those pictures and go to Denver to testify during the sentencing phase of the trial. Poor man, he was so grief-stricken at losing his wife that he moved back in with his mother to have help with the little boy and never again lived in the house heÂd shared with his wife. Another man had a "near miss" with his wife. She also worked for HUD and, under normal circumstances, would have been right there with the other two menÂs wives, but her job involved travel to Indian communities. She had a regularly scheduled travel date that conflicted with their only childÂs, a daughter, soccer game so she traded and traveled on the 19th to be home for the girlÂs soccer game.

My daughter and her best friend, just two years out of high school, were both working evening shifts. My daughter was waiting tables at a restaurant near our apartment, and her friend worked at the sign-in desk at what was then the Westin Hotel downtown. I think itÂs now a Sheraton. Being accustomed to staying up late they didnÂt wake up until maybe 10 am. Once they heard the news they took off together to see what they could do to help. First they tried the Oklahoma Blood Institute which had put out a call for O negative donations (my daughter is not O negative, not sure about her friend), but every donation center was swamped. They had to turn away people because there would simply not be enough time in the day to take that many donations. They went to a fabric store to buy ribbons. No ribbon color had yet been selected to represent the city and the tragedy so they picked purple. Late that first night they took their spools of ribbon downtown and tied them around all the poles along the marked off perimeter of the area. The next night a policeman would remember having seen my daughter tying ribbons.

Next they tried volunteering for anything that was needed. Again, they were turned away everywhere because everyone was swamped with people volunteering to help. They finally managed to convince someone, Red Cross I think, that they had something to offer most of their other volunteers didnÂt. They were young, worked evenings, and were accustomed to being up very late. They could be there to help in the middle of the night when most of their other volunteers needed to get some rest. Mostly they just served drinks to the rescuers, police, and others working on the rescue effort. This is when the policeman remembered seeing my daughter tying ribbons the night before.

My daughterÂs friend "caught" a rescue worker buying himself a soft drink from a vending machine on the hotelÂs first floor. She "scolded" him and pointed out that one flight up, on the Mezzanine, rescue workers were being provided drinks for free. I remember a news article where some of the rescuers who came from New York remarked about how in 1993, the first time the World Trade Center was attacked, street vendors showed up charging outrageous prices for coffee and sandwiches. Here, we pretty much fed them for free. Cots were set up in the convention center for the rescuers to sleep rather than them having to pay for hotel accommodations, and the governorÂs wife worked with local florists to see that a rose was placed on each cot every night.

Whenever the rescue effort put out a call for supplies, I specifically remember boots for the search dogs, in short order they would be literally inundated. WeÂd hear the local news people ask for something then the next thing you hear is, "Please, we have enough of this, no more!" I have a friend who was still active in Boy Scouts then, both his sons were in Scouting. He remembers sitting at the Channel 5 location with a semi trailer taking donations. He says the line of cars waiting to drop things off was enormous. He especially remembers a little old lady; he says she probably could hardly walk, driving up bringing goods and then insisting on also writing a check to help out.

Sometime in the late Â90s I took my first, and so far only, tour of the Crystal Bridge. I donÂt remember where in the gardens it is, and I donÂt even remember what exactly it is, but somewhere is a tree, small when I saw it, with a plaque in front of it that states the tree is a thank you gift to the city from rescuers who came from Arizona. I canÂt explain how perplexed I was when I read the plaque. They came to help us. It is we who should thank them, but there I was staring at a tree these Arizonans gave us in thanks. I think that gesture says a lot about who we are and how we were perceived in the immediate aftermath of the bombing.

We have another anniversary this week. While the environmentalists co-opted it some years ago for "Earth Day" for me it will always be the anniversary of the run of Â89. Thousands of brave souls came looking for a new life, but one that they would have to carve out of the wilderness by their own efforts and hard work, having no one else to rely on but themselves and their neighbors. Less than twenty years later Oklahoma Territory joined with Indian Territory, another situation where people had to make a new life in the wilderness by their own work except that it was forced on them and not their choice, to form the State of Oklahoma. We are the sons, daughters, grandsons, and granddaughters of these pioneers. Through oil booms and busts and the associated economic ups and downs, the Dust Bowl, killer tornadoes, and the Murrah Building bombing we have continued to exhibit what Howard Witt, writing for the Chicago Tribune on the occasion of the bombingÂs 10th anniversary, called our "Âessential prairie stoicism--the same ÂOklahoma spirit for which they were lauded in the aftermath of the bombing, when Oklahomans demonstrated extraordinary decency, humility and bootstrap resiliency" based on "deep religious faith and unblushing middle American values."

I agree with Dawn. April 19, 1995 was both our worst tragedy and our finest hour. I have never been more proud of my state and its people than I was in those dark days of April. IÂve always said that no matter how much nicer, prettier, easier other places might be to live, I wouldnÂt want to live anywhere else, and my fellow Okies are the reason. You are the best people in the world, and that goes just the same for all you "transplants" and "adoptees." YouÂre here now, and as my Granddad would say, "youÂre ourÂn."

Debra

I remembered also, yet can't believe it happened 15 years ago. Senseless as is almost always the case. All those lives for what?

May they rest in peace.

Mari

I lost my cousin in the bombing. She was in drug enforcement. I also remember many mornings at 9:00 when I was parked on the street in front of the Water Resources Board. My company at one time owned the building and we maintained storage in the basement. What a frightful thing. I felt the shock of the blast and cried many tears. Lives forever changed. God is good.

Thank you all for sharing your memories. I am mesmerized by your memories of that day and the aftermath. You were living through a historical event that many people will never forget, and I believe we shouldn't forget it. I hope we never do.

One of our neighbors, just up the road a couple of miles, when we first moved here was Mr. Wikle of Wikle Water Works. Mr. Wikle was in the Oklahoma Water Resource Board meeting when the bomb went off and he survived. It was the audio recording of his meeting that captured the explosion on tape, and that tape has been featured at the museum.

I lived in Texas then and we all thought initially a gas line had ruptured and set off an explosion. How wrong we were. As we watched that day and for the next few days, and then read news stories in the weeks and then years since then, the one thought it my head always was that I was so immensely proud of the Oklahomans and others who came here to assist them. It made me proud to be an American to see how much everyone came together and helped one another.

My DH has run the Oklahoma Memorial Marathon several times. Of course, the early races were so intensely emotional and moving that it was sometime hard to watch the runners who were survivors or who were related to those who were deceased or injured. Many of them used safety pins to attach photocopied photos of their loved ones to their shirts andd had a message that said "I Run For _______" with the name of their loved ones filled in. The pain in their eyes and on their faces has stayed with me to this day. Did you know that, nationwide and even worldwide, runners--including journalists who write about running as well as professional runners--commented many, many times about how the OK Memorial was so incredibly special and the the race directors, planners, staff, and volunteers did everything right to make it a very moving race. My DH spoke to a professional marthoner once who said he never misses the OK Memorial Marathon if he can help it, because it is 'special' to him more so than any other race he runs. I think that's pretty special. A marathon runner has his or her choice of many marathons they can run throughout the year, but this is the one so many choose year after year because it has a special meaning....to remember what happened here, to remember the ones who did not survive, and to remember too all the survivors. There are lots of marathons in 'cool' locations like Hawaii or L.A. or whatever, but there's not another one like ours, that starts and ends at hallowed ground and that memorializes a painful historical event and its effect upon everyone involved.

So, it has been 15 years and we don't forget. We remember. Our nation sought and found justice for the victims. Our city and state showed the world the meaning of resilience. In those those days, months and even years after 9-11, it was often Oklahomans who helped New Yorkers in ways no one else could. I see so much good that has come out of this horrible tragedy.

Laura, I am so sorry to learn you lost your cousin and I am truly sorry for your loss. I cannot imagine what that must have been like.

I echo Mari's words "May they rest in peace."

Dawn

I have nothing to add but wanted to thank you all for your beautiful words.

Diane

My niece's husband is running in the Memorial marathon for the first time this weekend and he is so pumped up about it! He is a fireman/paramedic now, and although he was only a teenager at the time of the bombing, I think being in that occupation now gives him a feeling of a special connection. They all have such giving, caring hearts.

I forgot to add in my earlier post that the day of the bombing was my granddaughter's first birthday. That evening when we all (family) got together for her first birthday celebration, it was almost impossible to feel like it was a celebration because we all had such heavy hearts, especially knowing that babies and children had been in that day care center.

Suzie