How Oklahoma City will commemorate the 25th anniversary of its bombing, with no crowds
Source: Washington Post
How Oklahoma City will commemorate the 25th anniversary of its bombing, with no crowds
All in-person events have been cancelled. The memorial, with its quiet reflection pool and lawn containing 168 glass and steel chairs, has been closed.
By Holly Bailey
April 18, 2020 at 1:06 p.m. EDT
OKLAHOMA CITY — For nearly a quarter of a century, people have gathered here on what is hallowed ground in this city, the former site of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, to remember the horror of April 19, 1995.
On that bright Wednesday morning, at 9:02 a.m., a rented Ryder truck filled with thousands of pounds of fuel and ammonium nitrate fertilizer exploded along northwest 5th Street in downtown, a blast so strong it rattled windows some 20 miles away. The bomb ripped off the north face of the Murrah building, killing 168 people, including 15 children inside a day-care center on the second floor, and injuring hundreds more in a cascade of concrete and flame.
The bombing shattered the innocence of what was then a sleepy city in the American heartland where many felt sheltered from the kind of hate and terror that had been largely associated with attacks overseas.
In the decades since, the nation would endure other horrific moments of violence, including a rise in mass shootings and an even deadlier series of terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. But every year, on April 19, the people of Oklahoma City come to the grassy memorial where the Murrah building once was, to pause for 168 seconds of silence and for the reading of the names of those who died, determined never to forget, even as it sometimes feels as though the rest of the country has moved on.
This year, on the 25th anniversary of the bombing, there will be no in-person mourning. Amid the coronavirus pandemic, the memorial, with its quiet reflection pool and lawn containing 168 glass and steel chairs, has been closed to the public, walled off by barriers preventing crowds from gathering as the city shelters in place to prevent the spread of covid-19.
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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/04/18/how-oklahoma-city-will-commemorate-25th-anniversary-bombing-age-coronavirus/
