OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) – Survivors and loved ones of the 168 people who were killed in the Oklahoma City bombing were not able to gather Sunday to mark the 25th anniversary of the attack, but that did not stop them from remembering.
Because the annual remembrance ceremony was canceled due to coronavirus restrictions, those the victims instead were honored with a video tribute that included the reading of the names of those who died followed by 168 seconds of silence.
Ordinarily, the city would have gathered Sunday at the memorial where the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building stood before it was destroyed by a truck bomb on April 19, 1995. Gates to the memorial mark time, 9:01 and 9:03 a.m., with a reflection pond between them representing 9:02, the minute the explosion permanently altered lives and the nation. Stylized, empty metal chairs represent each person who died, and the “Survivor Tree,” a gnarled American elm that withstood the blast, now stands on a small hill and shades the memorial below.
It was “extremely difficult” to not be able to attend in person, said Ryan Whicher, whose father, U.S. Secret Service Agent Alan Whicher, was killed in the bombing. “I’m not with my sisters today, I’m not with my mother today,” in Oklahoma City, he said by phone from Baltimore, where he now lives.
“But it’s all for the right reasons. … Everyone is making sacrifices. I don’t think it’s fair for us in this coronavirus (environment) to feel we should be treated any differently,” he said.