Oklahoma City: The Blood of Innocents

IN THE BOMB'S AFTERMATH, TALES OF HORROR AND HEROISM

By Nancy Gibbs Monday, May 01, 1995

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    Even as the doctors and rescuers went about their work, the rest of the city searched for ways to help. People waited in line for six hours to donate blood at the Red Cross. At one relief center housed in St. Luke's United Methodist Church, the McDonald's hamburgers, Domino's pizzas and sandwiches from Ruby's were piling up faster than they could be eaten. The international relief group Feed the Children has its headquarters five miles west of downtown. After the organization's boss, Larry Jones, went on local TV to ask for volunteers and donations for the victims and rescue workers, hundreds of cars began filing through the parking lot of the company's warehouse, the drivers asking what was needed and offering plastic bags and boxes full of everything from infant formula to flashlight batteries, food and paper goods. A sporting- goods store in Stillwater shipped every single one of its kneepads to the rescuers scouring the wreckage. Nearby Tinker Air Force Base sent a truckload of helmet lights.

    On Wednesday alone, more than 400 people showed up to help sort and pack donations. "We're taking all kinds of things," said Tim Baker, 45, a senior official with Feed the Children who supervised the frantic loading and unloading of supplies. "At one point they needed rain gear and flashlight batteries. At another point all they wanted was aspirin and cold drinks." He estimates that in a 12-hour period on Wednesday, his volunteers, all of whom showed up that day, moved 100 pickup loads of supplies to the disaster area. People approached from all sides, handing him checks and cash.

    "I WOULD NOT HAVE THOUGHT/ DEATH HAD undone so many ." wrote Dante of his descent into the inferno. What was most remarkable, in the aftermath of Oklahoma's sorrow, was that the people were not undone; the sturdy cliches about Midwestern fortitude came to life as an entire city refused to buckle in grief. "We hate and despise the people who did it," said Senior District Judge Fred Daugherty, who survived the blast in his courthouse office next door to the federal building. "But we're a strong and simple folk. We'll rebuild and roll with this thing. We're going to be holding court this week."

    That courage will be necessary in the weeks ahead, when all who have watched the carnage unfold will have to reckon with its meaning. It was one thing to imagine the threats from outside, the killers seeping across porous borders, waging war for causes beyond understanding. It was quite another to behold the ring of police cars descending on a pristine white farmhouse nestled in acres of cropland and wonder what hatreds are growing here at home, next door, right in plain sight.

    --Reported by Sam Allis/Norman, Patrick E. Cole, Tammerlin Drummond, S.C. Gwynne, William McWhirter and Ann M. Simmons/Oklahoma City

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