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In retaliation against the U.S. government, whom Timothy McVeigh blames for the Waco Siege two years earlier, McVeigh parks a truck carrying a bomb in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Minutes later it explodes, destroying the building and killing 168 people.
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00:01An ordinary government building, nine floors of glass and steel reinforced concrete, built to code, built to last.
00:09Then one morning a crude bomb causes destruction on an unimaginable scale.
00:14In seven seconds the building disintegrates. 168 people will die as a result of the explosion.
00:21Now with cutting edge computer technology we reveal exactly what went wrong.
00:30Disasters don't just happen, they're a chain of critical events. Unravel the fateful moments in those final seconds from disaster.
00:47The United States. Midwest. Kansas. April 18, 1995.
01:004.30 in the morning. A truck pulls out of a motel in Kansas.
01:06Three hours later it drives off the road and parks beside a lake.
01:11The driver is on a mission against the American government.
01:17He fills 13 208 litre barrels with a deadly combination of chemicals.
01:24The next day, April 19, he drives the Ryder rental truck and its lethal cargo south on Route 77.
01:34Every hour takes him closer to his target.
01:40Even the date, he has chosen deliberately.
01:44Exactly two years before in Waco, Texas, federal agents storm a militia compound.
01:51At least 75 people die.
01:54During the siege, the man visits Waco to show his support for the armed resistors inside.
02:01He blames the US government for their deaths and vows revenge.
02:08His name is Timothy McVeigh.
02:16Oklahoma. It's the start of a bright and sunny day.
02:20Early morning traffic heads for the bustling capital of this Midwestern state.
02:277 o'clock. Timothy McVeigh, the Ryder truck and its deadly cargo, join the flow of vehicles going south along
02:34Highway 77.
02:39Ahead, out of the plains, rises Oklahoma City.
02:44A regional center in the American heartland where numerous government agencies are located in one particular building.
02:55The nine-story Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building houses 16 federal agencies, including Housing and Urban Development, a military recruiting
03:03office, and the Secret Service.
03:09Built 18 years earlier, the Murrah was a modern purpose-built office block with a glass atrium and a wide
03:15pedestrian plaza at its front off Robinson Avenue.
03:22And at its rear, the glass-fronted façade towers above Fifth Street.
03:27The first floor of the Murrah is a daycare center.
03:32Employees in the Murrah and other downtown offices leave their children here while at work.
03:37One of them is 35-year-old Dolores Watson.
03:41This morning, she heads in early to drop off her 20-month-old grandson, PJ.
03:46PJ was full of life. He just pulled off his coat and a little jacket.
03:52He was happy. He was ready to go play.
03:56PJ joins 20 other toddlers and preschoolers in the daycare center.
04:00Some are as young as six months. The eldest is five years old.
04:05I was able to see him during the course of the day. He was accessible to me from my job.
04:12Dolores, a telephone engineer, often services the phones in the Murrah.
04:17But this morning, she heads across town to a meeting.
04:228.15.
04:25McVeigh is 35 minutes away from Oklahoma City, heading straight for the center of town and the Avra P. Murrah
04:31Federal Building.
04:37On the second floor, 59-year-old Florence Rogers is in charge of the Federal Employees Credit Union.
04:44She's looking forward to seeing colleagues as it's her first day back from vacation.
04:49I was anxious to get to work because I had scheduled a meeting with some of my upper management people.
04:59I was very excited to show my cruise pictures, anxious to get my day started and to take care of
05:07business.
05:108.53. Timothy McVeigh is in rush hour traffic that fills the downtown streets.
05:16Four months earlier, he checked out the Murrah and selected it as his target.
05:24His plan is to park the truck filled with explosives right beside it.
05:328.55.
05:37The Social Security office is on the ground floor of the Murrah.
05:42Inside, 20-year-old Dana Bradley, her children, mother and sister, join the waiting line.
05:51They're standing near the rear entrance of the building, just off 5th Street.
05:56My mom's still in line for us.
05:59While me and my sister stood by the door and filled out the papers for the Social Security card for
06:04my son.
06:07Driving along 5th Street, McVeigh's truck is filmed by a security camera.
06:15He pulls over.
06:16He pulls over.
06:16Inside the cab, he's drilled a hole and fed a crude fuse wire through to the bomb barrels in the
06:21back.
06:22He lights the fuse.
06:25He now has only 5 minutes to park the truck and make his getaway before the bomb explodes.
06:339 o'clock.
06:34The rider truck is forced to stop at a red light, 91 meters shy of the target.
06:41There are just 2 minutes left to burn on the fuse.
06:46McVeigh crosses Harvey Avenue and drives to the rear of the Murrah building.
06:50Dana Bradley, still waiting in line, spots the truck from the ground floor window.
06:55I turn around and I see a van, a moving truck, in front of the Social Security office.
07:079-0-1.
07:12On the second floor, Florence's meeting is underway.
07:16There were 8 and I was the 9th person in that little group.
07:24On the first floor, PJ and the other 20 children enjoy breakfast.
07:32And on the ground floor, Dana is still watching the truck.
07:38The driver gets out close to the back
07:42and walks past our window.
07:469-0-1 and 30 seconds.
07:48McVeigh walks away.
07:49There are now 361 people inside the Murrah building.
07:53The fuse has just 43 seconds before it explodes the bomb.
07:59Timothy McVeigh parks a rider truck packed with explosives outside the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.
08:09Now, using advanced computer technology, we'll discover what really happens when the bomb explodes.
08:199-0-2.
08:20The fuse has just 30 seconds to burn.
08:24361 people are in the Murrah building.
08:269-0-2.
08:45Dana Bradley is on the ground floor in direct line of the blast.
08:49All I seen was a violet light, and everything was black.
08:57On the second floor, Florence Rogers is in a meeting with eight of her staff.
09:02There was a rush of air like a tornado. Everything literally was blowing up before my eyes.
09:10I knew that was just it, and I prayed. I said, God, please save me. I have tickets to take
09:17care of.
09:19Dolores Watson's grandson is in the daycare center on the first floor, directly above the exploding truck.
09:27The entire front of the federal building was nothing but glass.
09:31The children that were in the windows were just over the blast.
09:43It takes seven seconds for the nine-story building to collapse in ruins.
09:50The blast devastates 324 buildings over ten city blocks.
09:54Windows shatter, and cars erupt in flames.
09:59People hear it as far as 89 kilometers away.
10:03The shock wave registers six on the Richter scale, equivalent to a major earthquake.
10:09If you are anywhere downtown, you've probably heard it and felt it.
10:14From across the city, eleven fire engines race downtown.
10:30Firefighter Chris Fields is one of the first on the scene.
10:34You can just see these hordes of people running towards us and having no idea what we were about to
10:40step into.
10:43District Fire Chief Mike Shannon arrives four minutes after he hears the explosion.
10:49It looked like we were in a war zone and we'd been strafed.
10:54It was just overwhelming.
10:55He takes charge of the rescue squads about to enter the dangerously unstable ruins.
11:01It produces the type of carnage that isn't seen in earthquakes or tornadoes or anywhere else.
11:09Wow. Holy cow. About a third of the building has been blown away.
11:15More than 5,000 square meters of offices are reduced to 650 square meters of rubble.
11:23The frantic search for survivors begins.
11:31On the remains of the second floor, Credit Union Chief Florence Rogers stares into a gaping hole.
11:42I started wondering about the staffing room with me.
11:47They were gone in a swish.
11:51Florence is helped down to the pedestrian plaza just below her second floor window.
11:56It took a few minutes after I was even out of there to realize that they hadn't run away.
12:04They hadn't left my office.
12:07They had literally been taken away by all the floors on top of them.
12:15But why does Florence survive when all eight of her colleagues vanish under the rubble?
12:20The answer will provide a crucial lead to investigators trying to unravel the disaster.
12:29Florence goes into shock.
12:31News cameras catch her wandering nearby, wrapped in a blanket.
12:409.08.
12:43Seven blocks away, Dolores Watson hears the explosion.
12:48Her 20-month-old grandson PJ is in the daycare center on the first floor.
12:55Only there no longer is a first floor.
13:01She joins the flood of anxious parents rushing to the scene.
13:06In my mind I was thinking, is this real?
13:10I know it was real.
13:11I'm looking at it.
13:12But a big part of me was wanting to say, this is not really happening.
13:22Rescuers claw through the tons of mangled steel and rubble, desperately searching for any sign of life in the debris.
13:29Even seasoned fireman Mike Shannon is shocked by the scene of devastation.
13:35You're trying not to be emotional and you're trying to think logical.
13:41But your mind keeps going back to what you're expecting to find.
13:50Rescuers begin to find people alive.
13:54One is a baby boy.
13:57He's rushed to hospital in critical condition.
14:01It's PJ.
14:03And I saw his little face and he was wrapped all in these gauze and he was sedated and he
14:09was laying there.
14:10But I mean there was his arms, there was his legs and there was my baby, you know.
14:15They told me that his chance of survival was very slim and that the next 24 hours would be crucial.
14:3410.20, 78 minutes after the explosion.
14:39While PJ remains in intensive care and the rescuers are struggling to pull out people alive,
14:4597 kilometers to the north of Oklahoma City, State Highway Patrolman, Charlie Hanger, pulls over a suspicious, battered old car.
14:54I drove up alongside the yellow Mercury marquee.
14:59I had realized that there was not a tag displayed on the rear bumper and stopped it.
15:06I saw a tall, young, white male.
15:09We met more or less between the two cars.
15:14I asked him for a driver's license.
15:16However, while he was retrieving that license, I saw what appeared to be a weapon under the jacket.
15:22Hands over your head.
15:24He says, my weapon is loaded.
15:27At that point, I thought he was trying to intimidate me.
15:31And I nudged him a little bit with the barrel of my weapon.
15:34I said, so was mine.
15:36I removed the weapon, threw it on the shoulder of the roadway.
15:45He was then handcuffed and placed in my unit.
15:49Officer Hanger checks the man's ID.
15:52There's a Michigan driver's license.
15:54I looked at the picture.
15:55It appeared to be the same individual I had stopped.
15:58And it did list Timothy James McVeigh as the name.
16:04He arrests McVeigh for the missing license plate and the loaded gun.
16:1010.28, 86 minutes after the explosion.
16:15Back at the Murrah building, rescuers have come across something other than a victim in the rubble.
16:20They said they thought they'd found another explosive device.
16:27There's panic and the rescue operation comes to an abrupt halt while the bomb squad investigate.
16:3654 minutes later, they sound the all clear.
16:39It's a false alarm.
16:40But rescuers have lost precious time.
16:43Now they're back amongst the carnage as vital minutes tick by.
16:502 o'clock in the afternoon.
16:55Dana Bradley has been trapped in the rubble for five hours as these images show.
16:59There was blood going through the concrete that was lying over me.
17:07Someone else's blood.
17:09All she can remember is standing on the ground floor with her mother and children watching the rider truck park.
17:22Dana has been found hours earlier but can't be moved.
17:26Her leg is trapped under a massive concrete floor.
17:31If they're to save her, the rescuers have only one option.
17:36They said the only way we're going to be able to get you out of here is to cut your
17:40leg off.
17:45Dr. Andy Sullivan, senior orthopedic surgeon, rushes to the scene.
17:50I just kind of said a prayer, God be with me, and kind of combat crawled into the area.
17:55Had to go under some rebar, reinforcement steel.
17:59My plan was to use just sharp instruments and separate the leg from the thigh through the knee.
18:06I was awake and aware of them cutting my leg off.
18:11She was awake.
18:13She was screaming.
18:15They said the sound was so bad, it broke their heart to hear me scream like that.
18:24I don't remember any of that.
18:26I don't remember any of that.
18:27She says she doesn't remember any of this and so I hope that's true.
18:39It takes 11 hours to recover all the survivors.
18:47168 people have died as a result of the explosion, including 19 children, all under the age of five.
18:56A photo of a baby being carried from the rubble comes to symbolize the tragedy.
19:02It's taken only seconds after she's handed to fireman Chris Fields.
19:08I was just standing there looking down at her and just thinking, you know, that knowing this is somebody's baby.
19:13She had an open wound to her skull and I pretty well knew at that time that she had already
19:18passed.
19:22The explosion and collapse of the building takes everyone by surprise.
19:28Oklahoma City had never suffered such a catastrophic disaster until this moment.
19:37But it takes just seven seconds for the nine story building to collapse.
19:45Using the investigators data, we can piece together the deadly chain of events to find out what really caused this
19:52terrible tragedy.
19:57State-of-the-art computer graphics will take you where no camera can go, into the heart of the disaster
20:03zone.
20:08It's obvious from the scale of devastation that this is not an accident, but the result of a bomb explosion.
20:15What kind of bomb could cause such devastation?
20:21Investigators start by looking for any evidence left behind.
20:25A giant crater in the road in front of the Murrah building indicates the center of the explosion.
20:34Dr. Paul Malaka is a military blast expert and co-author of the official report into the Oklahoma bombing.
20:41What we did is use the crater size to estimate the size of the explosion.
20:47It was a question of working backwards. We now have the crater, so how big must the explosive have been?
20:55The bomb crater is nine meters wide and two and a half meters deep.
20:59We estimated that it was approximately 4,000 pounds of TNT.
21:04That's equal to four major battlefield bombs used by the U.S. military.
21:15Eyewitness accounts place the rider truck at the heart of the crater.
21:21It's clear to investigators the bomb must have been inside.
21:26To demonstrate what happens, a truck is filled with just half the amount of explosives that detonated outside the Murrah
21:32building that morning.
21:42The bomb that explodes in Oklahoma City destroys virtually everything close to the blast, including the vehicle that carried it.
21:52But within an hour of the explosion, investigators find their first vital piece of evidence.
21:59Over 91 meters away, they discover a truck axle that doesn't seem to belong to any other vehicle.
22:06Could this be all that is left of the vehicle that carried the bomb?
22:13On the twisted metal, they discover the clearly marked vehicle identification number.
22:22FBI agents trace the number to a 1993 Ford truck owned by Ryder Rental.
22:29The Ryder branch in Junction City, Kansas, rented it two days earlier to a man named Robert Kling.
22:37Within eight hours of the bombing, an FBI artist draws an identical picture of Kling based on descriptions given by
22:44staff of the rental company.
22:50The FBI launches one of the biggest manhunts in American history.
22:55By evening the next day, they make the crucial breakthrough.
22:59A motel owner recognizes the identical picture as a man who recently stayed there, driving a Ryder truck.
23:10He checks in using ID in the name of Timothy James McVeigh.
23:16But where is he now?
23:20FBI agents discover that State Trooper Hanger ran a computer check on a man with that name less than two
23:26hours after the bombing.
23:29Amazingly, they discover that McVeigh is still in jail for traffic and firearms offenses.
23:36The FBI arrests McVeigh as a suspect in the attack.
23:41It was something that you never envisioned being involved in, you know, and it all came out of a routine
23:47traffic stop.
23:49Four months later, McVeigh is charged with mass murder in Oklahoma.
23:53It would probably be the last thing that I would think of that an American would actually commit a terrorist
23:59act against American people.
24:03The FBI discover that the bomb is homemade from materials easily bought over the counter.
24:11McVeigh eventually admits that he made it by filling barrels with ammonium nitrate and liquid nitromethane,
24:19better known as fertilizer pellets and rocket fuel used in drag car racing.
24:25The deadly mixture of more than 3,000 kilograms cost less than $5,000.
24:33But the question remains, how could such a simple homemade bomb cause such destruction to a steel reinforced concrete building?
24:49A bomb explodes outside the Murrah building in Oklahoma City.
24:53In just 7 seconds it collapses, killing 161 people.
24:59It's not just a great human tragedy, but a devastating blow to national security.
25:06The FBI tracked down and arrest Timothy McVeigh, the man responsible.
25:11Now the investigation shifts focus.
25:13How can a crude homemade bomb cause such devastation?
25:17Is there a fatal flaw in the Murrah's design that could put similar office buildings at risk?
25:29The architecturally acclaimed Murrah building is in fact extremely well designed.
25:35Oklahoma is in the middle of the Midwestern tornado belt.
25:39The Murrah is built from steel reinforced concrete used in military bunkers,
25:43able to withstand winds of up to 160 kilometers per hour.
25:49So why did McVeigh's simple homemade bomb cause it to collapse so catastrophically?
25:57Investigators track the last moments of McVeigh's journey, second by second.
26:05At 9.01, just 73 seconds before the buildings collapse, he parks the truck packed with explosives.
26:15He deliberately chooses a place where his bomb will inflict maximum damage.
26:22The rear of the building, beside one of the four columns that support the floors above.
26:29The bomb explodes.
26:38In just 7 seconds the Murrah is reduced to rubble.
26:43What happens during those 7 seconds now becomes the focus of the inquiry.
26:49The ruins of the building hold the vital clues that will provide answers.
26:56Dr. John Osteras is a renowned structural engineer who analyzes how buildings collapse.
27:03Part of my expertise is being able to read buildings.
27:07I can form sort of a three-dimensional mental image of what's going on.
27:11It would tell me how the building had responded.
27:13You see the patterns of how beams and columns broke apart.
27:18For Dr. Osteras, the broken floors and twisted columns are key pointers in working out exactly how the building reacts
27:25following the bomb blast.
27:30This film of a military test shows what happens during an explosion.
27:36The first stage is the bomb's lightning-fast blast wave.
27:41As the bomb's energy is released, it compresses air particles in its path to create a shock wave.
27:50This compressed air travels faster than the speed of sound, sweeping away everything in its path.
27:58The blast wave goes through the building in a blink of an eye.
28:01So we can break it down into what happens millisecond by millisecond.
28:07A millisecond is one thousandth of a second, about the time it takes for a person to blink twice, or
28:14a bullet fired from a gun to travel one meter.
28:18So to understand how the catastrophe unfolds, we'll use unique computer simulations to slow down the chain of events.
28:27Millisecond by millisecond, we'll see how the blast wave cuts through the building to answer the tragic question of why
28:34so many die.
28:37Seven seconds before collapse, the bomb explodes.
28:43In the first millisecond, one thousandth of a second, the shock wave covers 4.75 meters, traveling at 5 kilometers
28:50per second, and hits the closest part of the building.
28:54The column, McVeigh, parked next to.
28:58Engineers call this column, G20.
29:02The blast wave hits G20 with immense power.
29:08Dr. Malaka is an explosives expert.
29:13Researching his report into the bombing, he conducts scale model blast tests on concrete columns with the same dimensions and
29:20properties as G20.
29:23As the air blast expands violently, it exerts this enormous pressure on anything in its path.
29:33Dr. Malaka calculates that the shock wave hits the pillar with a force of more than 350 kilograms per square
29:40centimeter, destroying it.
29:44To put that in perspective, a hundred-mile-an-hour hurricane wind is much less than one pound per square
29:54inch, so these blast pressures were enormous.
29:57Dr. Malaka and his colleagues feed their test data into the $100 million supercomputer of the U.S. Army Corps
30:04of Engineers.
30:07This helps them visualize a blast wave as it penetrates a building like the mirror.
30:16They discover that one millisecond after destroying G20, the blast wave hits the glass-covered rear of the building.
30:25The facade of the building provided almost no resistance to the air blast.
30:32Military high-speed film shows what it's like when a blast wave hits a wall of glass.
30:41The windows are turned into a hailstorm of deadly shards.
30:52After shattering its windows, the blast wave penetrates the Murrah's entrance lobby, the open atrium where Dana Bradley is standing.
31:00I knew that was just it, and I prayed.
31:08The void of the atrium acts like a funnel, channeling the deadly blast wave up into the building, it slams
31:14into the underside of the first floor at more than 16,000 kilometers per hour.
31:21Tragically, directly above is the children's daycare center, where baby PJ and 20 other children are playing.
31:3215 children, aged from 6 months to 5 years, are killed.
31:46After 8 milliseconds, the blast wave reaches the second floor, where Florence Rogers is holding a meeting.
31:58It was like a bad dream.
32:02Everything literally was blowing up before my eyes.
32:07The blast wave continues to surge up through the building.
32:10It reaches the 8th floor in just 31 milliseconds, the time it takes for a vehicle airbag to inflate after
32:16a crash.
32:17But as it travels upwards, it is rapidly losing its destructive energy.
32:25The yellow highlight shows how the damage decreases as the blast wave rises through the building, and shows that floors
32:324 and above remain intact.
32:36The blast wave is over, but it's what happens next that causes the greatest destruction.
32:43In less than 7 seconds, all 9 stories collapse.
32:47Those who survived the initial blast are now crushed under tons of falling concrete.
32:57Investigators must now find out what causes this second wave of destruction.
33:06A massive homemade bomb has torn through the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.
33:12161 people lose their lives, even though many survived the initial blast.
33:21The blast was powerful enough to damage only the lower floors of the 9-storey building.
33:33Investigators now struggle to understand why the upper floors collapsed as well.
33:40In an effort to solve the mystery, they revisit the first moments of the explosion.
33:46As the blast wave spreads, it destroys the closest frontal column, known as G20, in less than 4 milliseconds.
33:55Above the remaining 3 columns is a massive girder, known as a transfer beam, that runs the length of the
34:00building.
34:02This transfer beam carries the weight of the 6 floors above.
34:06These floors in turn are held up by 9 columns.
34:10These 9 columns pass the building's weight down to the transfer beam, which then distributes it evenly across the 4
34:17pillars below.
34:19At first, some experts believe that after destroying G20, the blast then damages 2 more pillars under the transfer beam.
34:30With the pillars blown away, the beam loses its support and falls, taking all the upper floors with it.
34:42But the position of the transfer beam in the rubble doesn't support this theory.
34:46It hasn't fallen straight down as it would if the columns had collapsed beneath it.
34:52Instead, the transfer beam is discovered lying inside the building, suggesting it's been pulled inwards.
34:58It was in the debris pile behind the columns, so it was supported on this column, and it was found
35:06in the debris pile behind the column.
35:08For Dr. Osteras and his colleagues, the location of the collapsed transfer beam provides the vital clue.
35:14They can now piece together what happens in those crucial 7 seconds after the explosion.
35:24The blast destroys G20, but does not destroy the other 3 columns and the transfer beam.
35:31With the building still intact, the blast wave then rips through the atrium of the Murrah.
35:36It smashes into the floors above at more than 16,000 km per hour.
35:42There are 8 stories of concrete floor slabs in the Murrah connected to 9 supporting columns.
35:50But the second floor is also connected to the transfer beam that holds up the columns.
35:56This proves a critical factor as the blast wave powers through the building.
36:05Dr. Eve Hinman, a blast expert, worked with Dr. Osteras on the investigation.
36:11I think of the floor slabs often as the sail, like a sail on a sailboat, because they have so
36:18much surface area that the blast can act on.
36:22The blast forces up the floor slabs on the lower 4 stories.
36:27Blast pressure comes in, lifts the floor slab up, and the floor slabs just come up and shear off the
36:33columns, and then gravity takes over, and down they come.
36:41And so within milliseconds we got a collapse of floor slabs on the second through fifth floor.
36:52About 100 milliseconds after the explosion, the time it takes for the human brain to recognize an image, the third
36:58and fourth floors collapse onto the second, which is still attached to the transfer beam.
37:04This added weight means the second floor also gives way.
37:08But crucially, its connection to the transfer beam remains intact.
37:13The beam is ripped off the columns by the falling floor and dragged into the building.
37:20My theory is that when the floor slabs came down, they pulled the transfer girder in, the transfer girder rolled
37:30over.
37:30As that third floor slab collapsed and fell into the debris, it is pulling on the top edge of the
37:38transfer beam.
37:38And there's nothing to resist that force.
37:42100 milliseconds after the blast, the transfer beam is pulled down and around by the falling floor.
37:51200 milliseconds after the blast, the falling transfer beam sets off what engineers call progressive collapse.
38:00Progressive collapse is collapse that spreads beyond the initial zone of damage.
38:07One second after the blast, progressive collapse begins to destroy the Murrah building.
38:15You knock over one domino, that falls and knocks over the next and so on, and you get this progressive
38:21chain reaction.
38:23The transfer beam is the critical element or domino in the Murrah.
38:29It supports the columns that in turn support the seven stories above.
38:36With the transfer beam gone, the upper floors are fatally weakened and the building begins to collapse.
38:47Gravity takes another five seconds or so to bring the building down.
38:51It's all over in seven seconds.
38:54This is the time it takes the ninth story four to drop the 31 meters to the ground.
39:00More than 5,000 square meters of steel reinforced concrete collapses into a two-story high pile of rubble.
39:10It really isn't the air blast that's hurting people.
39:14It is the building that is hurting people.
39:25Among those killed by the collapsing building are Florence Rogers' eight employees who are with her on the second floor.
39:39As the floor slaps collapse, only she survives because she's sitting directly over a supporting beam on the opposite wall
39:45from the explosion
39:46that remains undamaged.
39:50I didn't realize what a small little portion of my floor didn't break away.
39:57Someone said there was only about 18 inches left that didn't break away.
40:04Engineers now know why McVeigh's crude bomb causes such devastation.
40:10But was it inevitable?
40:13Today, there's an awful realization that an extra $100,000 spent on the construction of the building
40:19could have prevented its collapse.
40:27April 19, 1995 is a date Oklahoma City will never forget.
40:33The day 168 people are killed when a massive truck bomb explodes outside the Murrah Federal Building.
40:41But could the building's devastating collapse have been prevented?
40:47A new seismic study has assessed how the Murrah Building would have responded
40:52if it had been built to Californian earthquake resistance standards.
40:56Something not required in Oklahoma.
41:00Its conclusions are startling.
41:02It reveals that only one exterior column and the lower floors would have been damaged.
41:09As their computer simulation shows, the building would have remained intact.
41:15To meet the earthquake resistant code, the whole building would have been strengthened with much more reinforced steel.
41:23This added steel would have tied the building together and stopped the fatal failure of the transfer beam.
41:30The catastrophic progressive collapse would never have happened.
41:36It would have cost less than 1% of the building's original construction budget around $100,000.
41:44The study suggests 4 out of 5 of those killed may then have survived.
41:52But in 1977, when the Murrah was built, no one ever imagined that it would be the target of a
41:58terrorist attack.
42:02Those who lived through that terrible day in 1995 still bear the scars.
42:11PJ is one of only six children from the daycare center who survived.
42:21His grandmother Dolores Watson mounted a tense vigil beside baby PJ's incubator.
42:29For nine years, he's lived with a tracheotomy tube down his throat to help him breathe.
42:35It was only removed in 2003.
42:39I made the statement once that when the trach was out that PJ and I would be able to move
42:44from April 19th to April 20th.
42:47But each day when this child looks in the mirror, the scars are still there.
42:53As their second floor office fell to the ground, Florence Rogers lost 18 of her 33 colleagues at the credit
42:59union.
43:04Nothing has ever been the same or ever will be the same.
43:09It literally changes your life forever.
43:12She recruited new staff and re-established the company.
43:17Then she retired.
43:24The falling floors killed Dana Bradley's mother, her son and three-year-old daughter.
43:33Dana survived the emergency amputation of her leg.
43:36Months of treatment followed, but Dana has achieved a miraculous recovery.
43:41We have your new prosthesis all finished up.
43:43Oh, man.
43:45It was, uh, wow. It was like, wow, I'm walking.
43:48It's beautiful. I love it.
43:50I was strutting down the hallway. I loved it.
43:54The more I wanted to walk and the more I cared about living.
44:02The remains of the Murrah were destroyed five weeks after the attack.
44:14Five years later, the site opens as a national memorial to remember the 168 lives lost that day.
44:24The site commemorates the exact moment in time that hurt so many.
44:30The road the truck parked on is gone, replaced by a lake.
44:36There's one chair for every life lost.
44:44Man, woman and child.
44:49Across the street from the site of the Murrah, a new federal building opened in 2003.
44:56State of the art.
44:58Its design incorporates key lessons learned from April 19.
45:04There's no point for the building to stand after the event if everyone inside is killed.
45:11It's about saving people.
45:13The lobby, the entrance that funneled so much of the explosion into the Murrah, is now protected by two centimeter
45:20steel blast shields.
45:23The glass is new generation blast proof material designed not to shatter.
45:31But the most effective measure to prevent a repeat of the tragedy is also the cheapest.
45:37Ram proof bollards around the building's perimeter so no one can park close to it.
45:45This simple step would have stopped McVeigh driving his truck up to the Murrah and limited the destruction that followed.
45:55Timothy McVeigh is found guilty of mass murder and executed by lethal injection on June 11, 2001.
46:0374 months after his bomb kills 168 people.
46:09But the stark reality remains.
46:11There's little that can be done to stop a determined terrorist who decides to target innocent civilians.
46:19Most office buildings around the world are just as vulnerable as the Murrah.
46:25If a bomb went off outside them, they would react just as catastrophically as the Murrah in those fatal seven
46:32seconds at 9.02 on April 19, 1995.
46:375.
46:375.
46:395.
46:396.
46:416.
46:426.
46:437.
46:457.
46:568.
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