AP Was There: A truck bomb rips through a federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995

OKLAHOMA CITY AP EDITORS NOTE On April a former U S Army soldier parked a rented Ryder truck loaded with a powerful bomb made of fertilizer and fuel oil outside a federal office building in Oklahoma City The blast at the Alfred P Murrah Federal Building killed people including children and injured more than others in what remains the deadliest homegrown attack on American soil It was a m in the Oklahoma City bureau of The Associated Press when a handful of staffers certain just getting to work were startled by what felt like a small quake rattling the office Certain guessed it was a nearby gas explosion Then reports started trickling in It didn t take long at all for the gravity of the event to set in reported Linda Franklin the AP s Oklahoma City news editor at the time She fast dispatched reporters and photographers to the downtown Alfred P Murrah Federal Building about miles kilometers away They would become among the first journalists on the scene of the deadliest homegrown attack in U S history an explosion that killed people including children and left more than others injured Judy Gibbs Robinson then a broadcast editor for the AP whose job was mostly filing brief stories for radio and TV was the first AP reporter to arrive downtown I still remember the dress shoes I was wearing because they had fabric on the sides and I was stepping over glass Gibbs Robinson disclosed A lot of people were just pointing and saying It s downtown It s downtown In chosen tactics Gibbs Robinson was prepared for the moment A broadcast training she had just now attended urged reporters to record all the sights and sounds of a news event As she made her way closer to the building the AP veteran put those skills to work I just started talking and watching and listening describing what I was seeing she stated Thirty years later what Gibbs Robinson witnessed is still seared into her memory Parents reuniting with their children at a YMCA daycare near the blast site A man whose suit looked untouched from the front but was shredded in the back because his back was turned to a window when the blast erupted Cellphones were not yet commonplace but Gibbs Robinson needed to call the newsroom She entered a bank where employees had stretched a landline telephone out onto a ledge making it available to anyone Meanwhile emergency responders streamed into the area That was how I filed my first analysis she explained Back in the newsroom Franklin and other staffers pushed a steady stream of copy and photos onto the AP wire for newspapers and broadcasters around the world The phones rang constantly with other media outlets inquiring about AP copy or asking for the names of people killed or wounded I remember feeling like an octopus that day I just didn t have enough arms disclosed Lindel Hutson the bureau chief in Oklahoma City The newsroom was moving in a blur and amidst it all a stranger walked through the door Hutson recalled almost being too busy to talk to the man who commented he was an amateur photographer and yearned to show the AP pictures he had snapped at the blast site Hutson and David Longstreath an AP staff photographer took a moment to see what he had One image jumped out this instant It evidenced an Oklahoma City firefighter cradling a fatally wounded baby in his arms I thought Oh my God This is it Hutson recalled On the spot Hutson negotiated a deal with the photographer Charles Porter to purchase the image The photo won Porter the Pulitzer Prize for spot news photography and remains one of the preponderance defining images of the attack I think that picture ostensibly explained more than words could about what happened down there Hutson reported By the end of the night the Oklahoma City bureau had become a cramped hotbed of activity AP reporters editors and photographers from across the country had descended on the small office for the story that would consume the staff in the months ahead For everyone who had a role in the coverage it was among the majority considerable event in their professional lives This happened in our backyard Hutson commented It took quite a mental toll on everyone Following is the story the AP published on the day of the bombing Wednesday April before the true death toll was known Car Bombing Kills More Than No Claim of Responsibility By JUDY GIBBS Associated Press OKLAHOMA CITY A car bomb ripped deep into America s heartland Wednesday killing more than people and leaving missing in a blast that gouged a nine-story hole in a federal office building Seventeen of the dead were children whose parents had just dropped them off at a day care center a practitioner mentioned We re sure that that death toll will go up because we ve seen fatalities in the building Fire Chief Gary Marrs stated There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack the deadliest U S bombing in years At least people were injured critically Marrs disclosed and dozens of others were feared trapped in the rubble of the Alfred Murrah Building I dove under that table mentioned Brian Espe a state veterinarian who was giving a slide presentation on the fifth floor When I came out I could see daylight if I looked north and daylight if I looked west Attorney General Janet Reno refused to comment on who might have been behind the attack President Clinton called the bombers evil cowards and Reno mentioned the leadership would seek the death penalty against them Their clothes torn off casualties covered in glass and plaster emerged bloodied and crying from the building which looked as if a giant bite had been taken out of it exposing its floors like a dollhouse Cables and other debris dangled from the floors like tangled streamers in a scene that brought to mind car bombings at the U S Embassy and the U S Marine barracks in Lebanon in Mayor Ron Norick commented the blast was caused by a car bomb that left a crater feet deep He stated the car had been outside in front of the building Obviously no amateur did this Gov Frank Keating noted Whoever did this was an animal Paramedic Heather Taylor explained children were dead at the scene The children all at the day care center ranged in age from to and a few were burned beyond recognition explained Dr Carl Spengler who was one of the first doctors at the scene Reno declared that people were unaccounted for by late afternoon About of children in the day-care center were missing The explosion similar to the terrorist car bombing that killed six people and injured at New York s World Pact Center in occurred just after a m when bulk of the more than federal employees were in their offices The blast could be felt miles away Black smoke streamed across the skyline and glass bricks and other debris were spread over a wide area The north side of the building was gone Cars were incinerated on the street People frantically searched for loved ones including parents whose children were in the building s day-care center Christopher Wright of the Coast Guard one of those helping inside the building declared rescuers periodically turned off their chainsaws and prying tools to listen for calls of help but we didn t hear anything just death You re helpless really when you see people two feet away you can t do anything they re just smashed he revealed The building has offices of such federal agencies as the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms Social Safety Veterans Affairs the Drug Enforcement Administration and Housing and Urban Growth and a federal employee credit union and military recruiting offices The office was built in and includes an underground parking garage The bomb was perhaps to pounds revealed John Magaw ATF director As for whether his agency suspected terrorists he advised CNN I think any time you have this kind of damage this kind of explosion you have to look there first More than two hours after the explosion people were still trapped in the building We have to crawl on our stomachs and feel our way and we re talking to casualties who are in there and reassuring them that we re doing everything within the good Lord s power to reach them and get to them Assistant Fire Chief Jon Hansen explained It s going to be a very slow process The explosion heightened U S fears of terrorism Federal buildings in several cities were evacuated because of bomb threats and the authorities ordered tightened measure at federal buildings throughout the country In a bomb blast in New York s Wall Street area killed people and injured hundreds Administration concluded it was the work of anarchists and came up with a list of individuals but all had fled to Russia Crisis crews set up a first aid center nearby and specific of the injured sat on the sidewalks blood on their heads or arms awaiting aid St Anthony Hospital put out a call for more anatomical help and at midday posted a list of more than names of injured so worried relatives could look for loved ones It was like Beirut everything was burning and flattened commented Spengler who arrived minutes after the blast Carole Lawton a HUD secretary disclosed she was sitting at her desk on the seventh floor when all of a sudden the windows blew in It got real dark and the ceiling just started coming down She then heard the roar of the whole building crumbling She managed to crawl down specific stairs and was not injured The explosion occurred on the second anniversary of the fiery fatal ending to the federal siege of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco Texas That siege began with a raid by ATF agents a month and a half earlier Oklahoma City FBI spokesman Dan Vogel wouldn t speculate if there was a connection The FBI s offices are about five miles away Dick DeGuerin who was cult leader David Koresh s lawyer stated any such link was just speculation In the World Deal Center bombing in February a rented van blew up in a parking garage beneath the twin towers Four Muslims were convicted Source