My office was four blocks west on 4th street.
We lost a big plate glass window.
I banked in the credit union that was in that building.
We lost a big plate glass window.
I banked in the credit union that was in that building.
I was working over on S. Sooner Rd. and had heard of a large explosion downtown by the Murrah building. I didn't think a lot about it as I too figured someone cut into a large gas line and had a very bad day.
I had been going into that building every couple of weeks since it was built. My credit union was there and as a matter of fact, I was planning on being there that very morning, but instead I went the day before at lunch. The amount of steel and concrete put into that building was incredible. I always thought it was over built.
Then a good friend and one of our programmers came out of the engineering office and told me his wife was injured and he was going to the hospital. I thought..."Wait a minute, his wife works on 4th street at the Federal court house, this was on 5th street".
So I went up front to the training room where we had a TV and just as I walked into the room is when the Channel 9 chopper was making it's first pass around the building to show the damage. My jaw dropped...
I had been going into that building every couple of weeks since it was built. My credit union was there and as a matter of fact, I was planning on being there that very morning, but instead I went the day before at lunch. The amount of steel and concrete put into that building was incredible. I always thought it was over built.
Then a good friend and one of our programmers came out of the engineering office and told me his wife was injured and he was going to the hospital. I thought..."Wait a minute, his wife works on 4th street at the Federal court house, this was on 5th street".
So I went up front to the training room where we had a TV and just as I walked into the room is when the Channel 9 chopper was making it's first pass around the building to show the damage. My jaw dropped...
I use to use that guy to work on my junker work car before I got a company car. He was close to my office so it was easy to drop off & pick up.
They reassembled the van in an old Quonset hut on the N side of 4th about a 1/2 block east of my office. It was pretty eerie to drive by, look in the overhead and see all those parts strung out on the floor in there. Lots & lots of blue jackets with yellow lettering walking around the neighborhood as well.
Sitting in the dentist chair at NW 23rd and Drexel, I thought someone had bombed the school just down the street.
Me too. Back in the day when we got paper pay checks. I always went E up 4th to the Catholic church, hung a left and parked on the street by the stairs up into the plaza. Up the stairs across the plaza, in the door and up the elevator to the Credit Union. Left out the elevator, right down the hall past the CIA office and right into the tellers room. Back out the same way. quick and easy. I can still see that big old stain at the top of the building on the west side from the construction process.
I was in that building an awful lot. I had a check in my billfold I intended to deposit, but I just hadn't got around to it yet. Had to wait until they got us a temporary place out off Meridian or MacArthur, can't remember exactly, to get that put in my account. Bad days. Really bad days. I knew or had done business with most of those 18 employees over the years.
On a side note, I saw Florence's obit in the paper a few weeks or months back. She ran the place. Most of the causalities were sitting across her desk from her when the floor fell away.
It's a small world, isn't it? My big boss (before he was the big boss, while he was working in downtown OKC) was supposed to be in a 9am meeting in the big conference room of the (IIRC) Journal-Record building that is/was directly across the street from the Murrah Building. For some reason, the meeting got delayed, so he wasn't in the conference room when the bomb went off, something for which he was eternally grateful, because that conference room has a giant window that was completely shattered by the blast and ended up embedded in nearly everything in the room.
Even curiouser, a guy I knew from the LGS had a brother who was in the Journal-Record building when the blast went off, and he was seriously injured by flying glass. I was talking about that with a lady at work, and she knew immediately about whom I was talking, because he was either her son-in-law or married to her niece...
Yep, Florence was a family friend. My dad knew her husband from the NG and my sister went to church where she did for years. I still remember opening my account before the Murrah building was even built. The CU was in the Federal courthouse building on 4th and Florence was the one who opened it. I was just a kid, probably about ten or so.
It's kinda weird, but when I left that day before the bombing I went out on the south side through the plaza/courtyard thing over the parking garage as I often did and walked back around. It was 12:00 and It was a perfect sunny spring day. The church bells were ringing, the kids from the daycare were playing and birds were singing. And for some reason I noticed all of that, it was a very peaceful few moments. I had no idea it would be the last time. I was parked very close to where the bomb truck was and also parked in that very spot many, many times.
I very rarely went in the North side, almost always the south side thru the plaza. That plaza was a great spot to just sit and relax and gather your thoughts. Always plenty of parking along the street east of the church as well. Almost never had to look for a spot.
I remember that morning so well, I was working on the aft horizontal stab torque box of a 707/E3 trainer and listening to Rick & Brad on the KATT. When it happened I thought the hangar door was going to fall in on me.
One of the avionics guys I worked with, his wife had just hired on to the credit union and was suppose to start her first day, that day, however, by the grace of God both of their daughters had the some kind of bug and she was unable to start that day.
One of the avionics guys I worked with, his wife had just hired on to the credit union and was suppose to start her first day, that day, however, by the grace of God both of their daughters had the some kind of bug and she was unable to start that day.
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