Edye Raines looks from spangle-rimmed sunglasses when asked whether she is the same person now as she was before the Oklahoma City bombing of April 19th, 1995.
“Oh, no I’m a different person. People keep telling me I should write a book. And I say ‘no, no!’” she says, laughing at the thought. “Too many people would be mad at me.”
We are sitting on a sunny lunchtime in Bar-K, a dog play pen and a cafe. She keeps half an eye on her poodles, Heisenberg –“after Breaking Bad”- and Traveller, who is 10 and accompanies Raines on her travels through the US as an equine dentist.
Raines has two adult children now. In 1995, she was a young mum to Chase (3) and Colton (2), both of whom died in the bombing that devastated the Alfred P Murrah federal building in downtown Oklahoma. Some 168 people were murdered by the enormous car bomb left by Timothy McVeigh and his accomplice, Terry Nichols. The atrocity remains the worst incident of domestic terrorism in US history.
Chase and Colt were among the 19 young children attending the first-floor creche who were killed that morning. In the footage of the immediate aftermath, played and replayed around the world, there is shaky footage of Raines arriving on the scene, through the smoke and general shock. In several documentaries, she has contributed her own footage of her little boys; at home; in their car seats, blond and lively toddlers. She has told of how she was mopping her floor when the blast struck at 9.03am that morning and sensed immediately that her sons were, as she puts it in a recent National Geographic series, “soaring with the angels”.
The love people showed after the bombing is what makes the place special. I do think it became a different city. More vibrant
— Oklahoma bombing survivor Amy Downs
On Saturday, she will be among the bereaved and those who survived to gather at the memorial garden, on the site of the building, which was demolished weeks after the bomb. She has never missed a memorial service and admits she cherishes the occasions because it is as though her little boys can somehow summon the people that matter to her. This week, she finds herself mystified by the fact that three decades have slid by. It doesn’t seem plausible. She neither forgot anything about the short precious years with the two boys nor stopped living afterwards, which is why friends of hers often tell her to go write that book.
“I’ve had this very colourful history and it’s like ... I mean, I’ve been married seven times. But I love everyone – I’m still friends with all my mothers-in-law. One year I had five of my ex-mother-in-laws at the memorial service. In the same row! I just get bored, I guess! I had Chase at 18, Colt when I was 19. We actually got divorced the November before the bombing but myself and their father were still friendly cos we’d known each other ... forever. And after the bombing, we got remarried. Which was really dumb. The National Enquirer said ‘hey, if you guys want to get married we will pay for the honeymoon’. Went to Hawaii. The entire family! Then, of course, we got divorced almost straight away after. He died just a few years ago.”
She shrugs. This comes up in conversation governed by the then-and-now diktat of the bombing. No Oklahoman under the age of 37 can have anything other than a hazy memory of that time. Yet it remains a fixed point in this enigmatic city. The bombing gave the world its first true sighting of Oklahoma. Thirty years on, the cityscape is still recognisable, with its broad avenues and the distinctive sandblasted, yellowish profile of the buildings that surround the eviscerated Murrah building. Talk to anyone about the city and they will tell you it is a transformed place since the bombing.
“I’m sure you’ve heard of the Oklahoma standard,” Amy Downs, the last person to be rescued from the ruined interior, told me when we spoke by phone.
“Look, after that bombing happened people in the city joined together for good. The love those people showed is what makes the place special. I do think it became a different city. More vibrant, to be honest. Before the bombing, if you were to walk down Bricktown, there was one restaurant there. Now, it’s transformed. The people are so friendly. I think that’s what makes Oklahoma what it is.”
It’s certainly easy-going; traffic moves at a blissed-out pace. Cafes and restaurants are never rushed. “I wouldn’t trade this place,” says a server in a coffee shop in the former industrial area of Bricktown, now a restaurant and tourist hub. “It’s just a great place to live. We don’t have nothing special to look at. I won’t try to say that. But people here make up for it.”
Bricktown is adjacent to the arena where the NBA team the Oklahoma City Thunder plays. The team came in 2008, from its former home in Seattle, giving the city a reason to shout for something joyous.
The title of one of the more celebrated books about the city, written by Sam Anderson, serves as a wonderful shorthand to Oklahoma’s eclectic heart – and its efforts to establish an identity and voice among ultra-competitive American cities. It’s called: Boomtown: The Fantastical Saga of Oklahoma City, Its Chaotic Founding, Its Purloined Basketball Team, and the Dream of Becoming a World-class Metropolis.
That dream is ongoing. It will be an Olympic city in 2028. But in the weeks after the bombing, Oklahoma became a symbol for the threat of domestic terrorism. Then president Bill Clinton was, in a supreme irony, holding a talk on international terrorism when he learned of the bombing. “I wanted to scream,” he would recall of his reaction. “But then I said, no: you don’t get to do that.”
The manhunt led to the swift arrest of Timothy McVeigh, then 27 and a decorated Gulf War army veteran. The choice of April 19th was to mark the second anniversary of the Waco siege in Texas, a 51-day standoff between federal agents and a religious sect known as Branch Davidians that ended with 86 people dead after a gunfight and fires.
The events at Waco stirred anti-government groups, but McVeigh offered no profound insight into his actions: he had white supremacist leanings and developed anti-government sentiments, which fatally tipped into nihilistic hatred. He was sentenced to death and executed by lethal injection in Terre Haute, Indiana, in June 2001.
On Wednesday, a public conversation took place about the less-publicised state trial of Nichols. The original federal trial was confined to the murder of eight federal officials. Nichols was sentenced to life without parole. Because of that, Oklahoma state decided to press ahead with a separate state trial of Nichols. “Partly because of the cost, the thought was: why do we need a state trial?” judge Steven Taylor, who tried the case, told the gathering. “But the district attorney, Wes Lane, had 160 murder cases sitting on his desk.”
It is generally held that few people have dedicated as much time and research to the bombing and its aftermath as Nolan Clay, a veteran journalist for the Oklahoman. “The state trial didn’t get the same attention,” he told the meeting. “But it did bring solace to the 160 families.”
The jury opted 7-5 against a death sentence. Judge Taylor spoke to each of them afterwards. “What they all said was that the five holding out for life without parole believed that to be the harsher punishment. And he is sitting in solitary confinement all these years later while we are here, so he may agree with those jurors that it is pretty dang harsh.”
Bombing survivors at the talk greeted each other as old friends. The atmosphere was convivial. But still. At one point, Clay was asked about the sheer toll of sitting through those court cases. “I drank a lot to forget.”
McVeigh wanted revenge for Waco. He was mad at the government. And we can all be mad at the government for some things. Not that that’s the way to take care of it. I am sure there are other McVeighs out there
— Edye Raines
For every person connected to the atrocity, there are a hundred other stories. Downs was filmed as she was carried out of the building on a stretcher. She was working in the credit union. They lost 18 of their staff of 33. It was while on that stretcher, her eyes set to the sky, that she promised herself not to take any aspect of life for granted.
“You know, for months afterwards I was sitting inside, scared of everything and I didn’t want to go on. And I had this realisation that I am not helping anyone by refusing to live. I am not honouring their memory. I really want to live. The health thing wasn’t so much about me as the fact that I had a son. And I wanted to make sure I could do things with him and be there for him.
“Just before all of this, we had gone to the State Fair. And I had been unable to go on one of the rides with him because I was just too big to fit on it. And then, once I discovered bike riding, I absolutely loved it. And that led to walking and running. Of course there were a lot of other elements. Everyone went through PTSD and survivors’ guilt. But I do wonder. Would I have continued along that sleepy way of living? I really don’t know.”
She returned to the credit union and became chief executive: now she’s a vibrantly healthy early retiree and a public speaker. McVeigh and Nichols seldom dominate her thoughts.
The same is true for Raines. Although she believes there are potential other home-grown terrorists out there.
“McVeigh wanted revenge for Waco. He was mad at the government. And we can all be mad at the government for some things. Not that that’s the way to take care of it. I am sure there are other McVeighs out there.”
April is Oklahoma’s month. The city was born, after an infamous clearing of native tribes, through a literal race by the newly arrived to claim the free land offer on April 22nd, 1889. It grew unstoppably through the dust bowl and through the deadly tornadoes that habitually roll through. But the bombing shook it to its roots.
Thirty years is an auspicious anniversary: formidable but close enough for memories and faces to remain vivid. So, on Saturday morning, the city will cast a backwards glance again. Raines and Downs will be there. It will be a warm, sad gathering.
“It means a lot to me that president Clinton will be there. And I am happy to be able to honour Chase and Colt,” says Raines.
“I still feel them about me. It’s a quick in and out for me. I don’t hang there all day. Probably will go to the museum. And go to lunch. And then, well ... Sunday is Easter.”
