Oklahoma City Bombing

Richard Williams just walked out of a meeting in the Murrah Federal Building on the morning of April 19, 1995. He was talking with a colleague when the blast went off. It’s the last thing he remembers.

“I was dug out by an Oklahoma City policeman, taken to the university hospital where they treated me with triage and subsequently follow-up surgeries and physical therapy and all those kind of things for years,” Williams said.

Arlene Blanchard had nine days left in her contract with the U.S. Army when her office in the recruiting battalion, on the fourth floor of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, was shook. The April 19, 1995 bombing killed seven of her coworkers in the recruiting office and a friend’s child she held in her arms earlier that morning. In total, 168 people were killed that day.

The bomb that destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City killed 168 people - including 19 children. It injured hundreds more, and forever shaped the community.

April 19, 1995 started as an idyllic spring morning - clear skies, calm winds - better than most Wednesdays during the state’s usually-turbulent severe weather season. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Workers showed up to their jobs, and went about their regular routines.

That all changed at 9:02 a.m.

The future began 20 years ago, according to a new book by W. Joseph Campbell. In 1995, Timothy McVeigh’s truck bomb killed 168 people in Oklahoma City and sparked a debate about security. The Dayton Peace Accords ended a brutal war in the former Yugoslavia. The O.J. Simpson trial captured the imagination of a nation. Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinski began their affair that led to the President’s impeachment. And 1995 was the year the internet went mainstream.

It was supposed to be Gary Kirby’s day off when the senior airman in the United States Air Force got a call from his first sergeant. The request: Come back to Tinker Air Force Base dressed in a pair of blue jeans, a white t-shirt and white socks.

Kirby, now a senior master sergeant, showed up at the headquarters building to find a big, blue Air Force bus. He climbed on board, where he found between 40 and 50 guys --- and all of them looked like him.

Updated 10:31 a.m.: Ceremony concludes as dignitaries, survivors reflect

As rain started to fall on the Oklahoma City National Memorial Sunday morning, former President Bill Clinton delivered powerful remarks that drew a standing ovation from the thousands who gathered to mark the 20th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing.

"For a whole country, you burned away all the petty squabbles in which we engage, leaving only our basic humanity. I mostly came here to thank you today," Clinton said.

The bomb that destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City killed 168 people - including 19 children. It injured hundreds more, and forever shaped the community.

April 19, 1995 started as an idyllic spring morning - clear skies, calm winds - better than most Wednesdays during the state’s usually-turbulent severe weather season. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Workers showed up to their jobs, and went about their regular routines.

That all changed at 9:02 a.m.

All this week we’ve looked back at the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah federal building as the 20th anniversary approaches – from some of the lingering mental health issues, to a new play that tells survivors’ stories, to how the recovery from the tragedy sparked downtown Oklahoma City’s renaissance.

On April 19, four employees of the Oklahoma Historical Society were injured while working in the Journal Record building across the street from the Murrah building. They ended up in four different hospitals, with little to no way to coordinate communication. That’s one of the biggest challenges the American Red Cross faced that day, according to The Journal Record’s Kirby Lee Davis: