10 Years Later, Oklahoma City Marks Attack

[Ang4Short]

10 Years Later, Oklahoma City Marks Attack
By KELLY KURT, Associated Press Writer
3 hours ago

OKLAHOMA CITY - A moment of silence, one second for each victim. On each chair, a yellow ribbon. Political leaders, survivors and victims' family members planned to gather Tuesday for a ceremony at the site of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, 10 years after it was destroyed in the worst act of domestic terrorism in U.S. history.

Vice President **** Cheney and former President Bill Clinton also were scheduled to speak at the event commemorating the deadly attack on American soil. Clinton was president when Timothy McVeigh's truck bomb blew off the north side of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, killing 168 people and injuring hundreds more.

McVeigh was convicted of federal conspiracy and murder charges and executed on June 11, 2001. Conspirator Terry Nichols is serving multiple life sentences on federal and state charges.

Jenny Parsley, who seldom visits the memorial on the grounds of the destroyed federal office building, planned to attend Tuesday's ceremony. The memorial site consists of 168 chairs that represent each person who died in the blast.

"I knew most of the people killed," Parsley said. "I lost a lot of good friends, too many."

Her decision to go in late on April 19, 1995, saved her from the blast that killed 35 people in the Housing and Urban Development office where Parsley worked.

"My workday began at 7 a.m. and I had a doctor's appointment at 10 a.m., so I could have worked for almost three hours, but for some reason I decided to go in after my appointment," she said. "I got up early that morning and got dressed and got ready to go to work and just decided not to go."

McVeigh's fertilizer and fuel-oil bomb went off at 9:02 a.m.

Parsley, 57, was driving her car and noticed thick black smoke over downtown. She thought it was a fire at a tire plant until she turned on the radio and heard that it was the federal building.

She drove to her husband's office and discovered that her college-age son also was there. Both her husband and son thought she was in the building when the bomb exploded.

"They were crying," she said. "When I got there, I just fell apart."

Parsley and fellow employees returned to work at a different building in Oklahoma City. When the new federal building was dedicated last year, near the bombing site, Parsley took early retirement.

Joseph Allbaugh, the former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, was chief of staff for then-Texas Gov. George Bush during the Oklahoma City bombing. Allbaugh, a Blackwell native who lived and worked in Oklahoma City for 17 years, said he lost a lot of friends in the bombing.

"Yes, it was a terrible day," he said. "We will always celebrate those 168 lives and you'll be glad to know the city and the state have rebounded ... Life does go on."

Jon Hansen, an assistant fire chief at the time of the blast, was preparing for a meeting at a fire station five blocks west of the federal building when the bomb went off.

"It shook our building," he said. "We looked to the east and saw an enormous mushroom cloud.

"We drove toward the building and I'll never forget how when we topped the hill with the sun low in the east, the street and sidewalks just glistened with broken glass."

[Heaven Sent]

Hey there, I have personal ties to that bombing. I knew many that were killed that day. I had been in the Murrah building many times before, but have not been back since...its way to painful even after 10 years.

[missus]

Ang, so many have forgotten this date. Thanks for posting. I have ties too. My brother (a paramedic) and sil (rn) said that when it happened, their beepers just ran red all the way across. That meant, just come. And my cousin with the FBI was lost, and the daughter of my former preacher was killed. She was in a rocking chair in the nursery. It certainly impacted many people.

May they all rest in peace.



Missus