Murrah moment

By: Bert Belanger//Guest Columnist//April 11, 2019

With David Chapman now elected, I knew that one of my last columns would be about the upcoming anniversary of the darkest morning in Oklahoma City’s history. Its impact on our city, and our city’s response, cannot be overstated, and is always worth repeating and remembering, particularly for those who weren’t here on April 19, 1995.

I was one of 1,000 people who left inspired from the mayor’s annual prayer breakfast, and was at my desk at 9:01 a.m. on the 17th floor of the First National Center. I was dictating a letter (yes, on a Dictaphone) when I saw the flash off of the glass façade of the First Oklahoma Tower; it seemed a full second later (it was not) that I simultaneously felt and heard the blast. Its concussive forces shattered the plate glass window in our law firm’s reception area, just down the hall, and our receptionist and I peered through the opening with a clear view north up the sloping Robinson Avenue.

Only later would it hit me what we were seeing; first focused on the black smoke billowing from near the intersection at the YMCA, then looking at the south side of the Murrah Building, which seemed undisturbed. It was late afternoon when I realized that what I saw was daylight, from a vantage point 10 floors higher, all the way through the building.

With cellphones jammed and sirens growing, it seemed best to get away from downtown as soon as I could. In later days, waves of survivor guilt nagged most of us who were spared direct contact with the scene from NW Sixth Street and points north. By 10:30 am, I had reached my wife on the phone, as I watched the live news feed from near N. Pennsylvania Avenue and NW 150th Street; she had been subbing at our kids’ school. She reported that a longtime Westminster School teacher, as a young girl raised in the Philippines during WWII, knew immediately that a bomb had detonated.

For the next 20 hours, my family spent most of our time helping at First Christian Church, a block from our home. As volunteers, we thought we would be reuniting families, but that was not the case. A week later, I would attend the funeral of my friend Clarence Wilson, who had served at HUD, with both distinction and grace. Over the ensuing 24 years, my city has performed likewise.

Bert Belanger is a broker with Adept Commercial Real Estate and a real estate attorney with Riggs Abney (bbelanger@riggsabney.com).