Ingram said as she lit a cigarette last week. It's like the rest of the world was thinking we lived in tepees,'' said Charles Van Rysselberge, president of the Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce. If he'd have knocked on one door, they'd have given him a new pair of jeans and something to eat,'' said JoeVan Bullard, who has lived in Oklahoma City for 28 years. It is a place where the sun blazes hot and when the rain does come, it pours. And where Sunday is church day.
Numbers capture only a small part of the incalculable loss.
Another 30 children lost both parents, and 219 lost at least one parent. The bomb didn't just destroy the federal building. It severely damaged nearby apartment buildings, churches and businesses. About 460 people were left homeless, and 7,000 people were left without a workplace. Within four years, at least half a dozen people closely linked to the Oklahoma City bombing took their own lives, city officials say.