ALFRED P. MURRAH FEDERAL BUILDING

The 'Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building' was a United States Federal Government complex located at 200 N.W. 5th Street in downtown Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The Murrah building was the target of the Oklahoma City bombing on April 19 1995.
The federal building was designed by architect Wendell Locke of Locke, Wright and Associates ^[1], and constructed using reinforced concrete in 1977 at a cost of $14.5 million. The building was named for federal judge Alfred P. Murrah, an Oklahoma native.
By the 1990s, the building contained regional offices for the Social Security Administration, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF). It housed approximately 550 employees. ^[2]
The remains of the building were imploded a month after the attack, and the Oklahoma City National Memorial was built on the site. The Federal government began construction of a new building to replace the Murrah Building in late 2000. This new building was placed just to the north of where the Murrah Building had been located, and incorporated a number of security measures implemented after the bombing of the Murrah Building.^[3]

Contents

April 19, 1995

Demolition

References

External links

April 19, 1995

At 9:02 A.M. a bomb of anhydrous ammonia and diesel fuel was exploded in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building destroying the target building and causing severe damage to several other buildings located nearby including The Journal Record Building. As a result 168 people died in the attack and hundreds more were injured.
One of the men later convicted for committing the crime, Timothy McVeigh was stopped by a Sheriff Deputy in Payne County, OK about 85 miles north of Oklahoma City for failure to have a license plate on his car. He was arrested and taken to the Sheriff office in Perry, OK to be processed. Just a few minutes before he was to be released, the office got a call to hold him for questioning. If McVeigh had had a license plate on his car it could have taken much longer to catch him.
During the day of the attack, almost all Oklahoma City radio stations started broadcasting news and information about that attack. Those that didn't have news departments began simulcasting other radio stations or the audio from television stations. During those initial hours, helicopters from all the major local news station hovered around downtown trying to provide the city and the country with the best information possible.

Demolition

Rescue and recovery efforts were concluded at 11:50 p.m. on May 4, with the bodies of all but three victims recovered. For safety reasons, the building was to be demolished shortly afterward. However, McVeigh's attorney, Stephen Jones, called for a motion to delay the demolition until the defense team could examine the site in preparation for the trial. More than a month after the bombing, at 7:01 a.m. on May 23, the Murrah Federal building was demolished. The final three bodies, those of two credit union employees and a customer, were recovered. For several days after the building's demolition, trucks hauled 800 tons of debris a day away from the site. Some of the debris was used as evidence in the conspirators' trials, incorporated into parts of memorials, donated to local schools, and sold to raise funds for relief efforts.

References

1. Architect Says Bombed OK Building was Solidly Built
2. Car Bombing In Oklahoma City Jolts the Nation
3. New Oklahoma City Federal Building: Groundbreaking Set for Tuesday

External links

★ Photos of the Murrah building before the bombing

★ Video of the demolition of the Murrah building

★ The Meaning of Timothy McVeigh by Gore Vidal