(19 Apr 2025)
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Oklahoma City – 19 April 2025
1. Various of flowers placed on memorial chairs for victims of bombing
2. SOUNDBITE (English) Matilda Lerma, Survivor:
“I’m just very grateful I am alive and I felt like perhaps I survived because there’s still a lot of things I need to do and if I had not been here I would not have been able to help friends of mine, relatives and there’s a reason, there’s still a reason out there why I’m here.”
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Matilda Lerma, Survivor:
++COVERED++
“There’s a lot of PTSD that is there and it never goes away. So we need each other, we need help. If we communicate, we’re able to cope with it a lot better.”
4. Medium of flowers being placed on chair
5. Close of flowers being placed on chairs in memorial
6. Medium of father and son walking with teddy bear near memorial
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Austin Allen, Lost father in Oklahoma City bombing:
“This is a special bear, this was given to us by the U.S. Government and it was given to all the families of the bombing, President Clinton gave it to us about 30 years ago so he’s aged well and now it’s a little bear that my son and daughter play with so it’s just really special to us.”
8. Various of crowded memorial after remembrance ceremony
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Austin Allen, Lost father in Oklahoma City bombing:
++PARTIALLY COVERED++
“It’s just important that we come up here and celebrate the growth, celebrate the family, celebrate what came out of this, all the bonds, the Oklahoma Standard. You know, it’s a joyous moment for us to come up every anniversary and honestly I look forward to it. It’s not something that I hide from. We meet it head on because we want to be the in this story.”
10. Wide of crowd at memorial
11. Close of couple embracing near memorial
STORYLINE:
Thirty years after the deadliest homegrown attack in U.S. history, former President Bill Clinton has returned to Oklahoma City for a remembrance ceremony.
Clinton was president on April 19, 1995, when a truck bomb exploded, destroying a nine-story federal building in the city’s downtown. He delivered the keynote address Saturday at a remembrance ceremony near the Oklahoma City National Memorial Museum.
Clinton was widely praised for how he helped the city grapple with its grief in the wake of the bombing, which killed 168 people, including 19 children. He says it was a day in his presidency that he will never forget.
Among those in attendance, Matilda Lerma, who survived the attack. She was working in the social security office on the first floor when the attack happened.
“I’m just very grateful I am alive and I felt like perhaps I survived because there’s still a lot of things I need to do and if I had not been here I would not have been able to help friends of mine, relatives and there’s a reason, there’s still a reason out there why I’m here," Lerma said.
It was her first time visiting the site in several years. She reunited with former coworkers who also survived the attack.
“There’s a lot of PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) that is there and it never goes away. So we need each other, we need help. If we communicate, we’re able to cope with it a lot better.”
Flowers were placed on the 168 Chairs at the Memorial, representing those killed in the attack.
Austin Allen, who lost his father in the bombing brought a teddy bear with him.
“This is a special bear, this was given to us by the U.S. Government and it was given to all the families of the bombing, President Clinton gave it to us about 30 years ago," Allen said.
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