THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, April 19, 1996 TAG: 9604190508
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MIKE MATHER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: OKLAHOMA CITY LENGTH: Medium: 97 lines
One day last April, Todd Cannon was searching for bodies in the rubble-filled shell of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.
The next day, he was walking on a Mexico beach with his wife.
It was their anniversary.
``Then it suddenly hit him,'' said Todd's wife, Sherry. ``He felt guilty he wasn't still there. He felt like he should have done more. He said he had to come back'' to Oklahoma City.
And so he did.
On the eve of the one-year anniversary of the bombing, the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history, Cannon was among about 20 members of the Hampton Roads urban search and rescue team who returned.
Only the federal building's concrete base remains to mark where search teams from around the country gathered last year to look for the living and recover the dead.
Today, a memorial service will be held there for the 168 people killed when a truck bomb gutted the building.
Virginia Task Force II, based in Virginia Beach but comprised of firefighters and rescue workers from several Hampton Roads departments, was one of the first national rescue teams sent to the bombing scene.
A year later, much has changed. And much remains the same.
On Thursday, Todd and Sherry Cannon walked down North Robinson Avenue where, a year earlier, glass shards crunched under Todd's boots. The federal building is now nearly gone. Where a mountain of rubble had cascaded from the building's bomb-fractured face, now there is only a grassy field.
Across Fifth Street, however, the blasted ruins of a restaurant and the Oklahoma Water Resources Building remain untouched, like open sores.
``Those two buildings haven't changed a bit,'' Todd Cannon said. ``They look the same now as when we were first here.''
The bombing damaged or destroyed more than 300 buildings and has cost more than $600 million.
Thirty children were orphaned, and 219 lost at least one parent.
Nineteen children were killed. Pictures of many of them now hang from a fence surrounding the site.
Staring at the pictures, Sherry Cannon broke down. She pressed her face against her husband's shoulder and cried.
``I thought so much about all the children, probably because we have three children ourselves,'' She said.
Of the more than 50 Hampton Roads rescuers sent here a year ago, fewer than half have returned.
Some who didn't said they had other commitments. Others said they couldn't afford the trip. Some said they just didn't want to go.
``It would be like opening the wound,'' one member said last week.
Those who have come said they needed the closure.
The Hampton Roads team was replaced by a fresh crew before the job was done.
``They rotated us out, so I never saw the finish of it,'' Cannon said. ``I don't think a day goes by that all of us don't think about it. When we were here, we worked so hard. We didn't have time to think much. To come back, it really chokes you up a bit.''
A year later, emotions are still raw and memories still fresh.
``It's very sad. It brings tears to my eyes,'' said Virginia Beach firefighter Robert Helfant. ``It hasn't changed a lot. I feel like I was here yesterday.''
Today at the bomb site at 9:02 a.m. Central time - the moment the blast ripped the building and the nation - 168 seconds of silence will be followed by the reading of 168 names.
Then the memorial service will continue at the Myriad Conventions Center, where the Hampton Roads rescue workers bunked last year. They and others who helped at the bomb site will be honored today.
``One reason I came is to talk with the firefighters from Oklahoma City,'' Helfant said. ``I wanted to shake their hands. We worked side by side for so long, but I never got the chance to shake their hands.''
Many members of the Hampton Roads rescue team said they returned to thank city and state residents for their hospitality.
Last year, the teams were greeted as heroes, pampered as royalty and comforted as friends. Some said they were fed so well they gained weight during the deployment despite the hard work and long hours.
Some who wished quietly for a slice of pizza were treated to whole pies.
And when one said the only thing missing was mints on their pillows, the next night there were mints on the pillows.
``All the people here treated us like family,'' Todd Cannon said.
``I wanted to come to give thanks to all of the people who took care of Todd,'' Sherry said. ``Oklahoma has wonderful people.'' ILLUSTRATION: Jamie Humphrey, 15, left, is comforted by her friend, Jada
McCarty, 15, and sister, Melody Humphrey, 12, as the Prue, Okla.,
girls visit the site of the former Alfred P. Murrah Federal
Building. Pictures of the 19 children killed in last year's bombing
now hang on a fence outside the building.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
KEYWORDS: OKLAHOMA CITY BOMBING FEDERAL BUILDING ANNIVERSARY by CNB