The Oklahoma Standard

We’ve not spent much time in Oklahoma over the years, so we want to visit some of the places we’ve heard about.

One of those places is the Oklahoma Memorial and Museum, and the events of April 19, 1995, when 168 people died in an horrific explosion at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.

The site of the building (now demolished) is a memorial to “a day like any other day.” Until 9:01 am, when the world changed forever.

At the west end of the reflecting pool representing the footprint of the Federal Building, the time is forever 9:03 am, the time that Oklahomans ran, not away from the destruction, but toward the wreckage to offer help.

168 empty chairs.

Parts of the Federal Buildings foundations have been left near plaques with names of building survivors. It seems strange to honor survivors, but somehow appropriate as well.

Near the museum entrance is the Survivor Tree. Originally in the backyard of a long gone farmhouse, it escaped damage during construction of the Murrah building. Losing all of its leaves and a lot of bark, it survived the 1995 explosion and is now a well tended, healthy tree.

Some 314 buildings in the area of the blast were damaged. This door was in the building across the street.

Rescue efforts continued for 16 days, during which specialists from Arizona and Sacramento, California, were called in. Every available rescue tool was used, including incredibly talented canine crew members. This pup is climbing a ladder extended from a fire truck positioned 60 feet away!

Acts of heroism were both quiet and elegant.

The Pulitzer Prize winning photo of a fireman carrying a baby was the inspiration for this sculpture.

Donations were made anonymously and often.

Only hours after the explosion, Timothy McVeigh was stopped by a trooper driving a car without a license plate. And on such small details the plan unraveled. The rest is history.

Across the street from the site of the explosion, a figure turns away from the destruction and weeps.

Presidents and pastors, funeral directors and plumbers, volunteers by the hundreds, all gave what they could. A fitting memorial, not only to the ones lost, but to the spirit of Oklahoma.

President Clinton, on April 23, 1995:

“If anybody thinks that Americans are mostly mean and selfish, they ought to come to Oklahoma. If antbody thinks Americans have lost the capacity for love and caring and courage, they ought to come to Oklahoma.”

Remember.