April 19th 1995 just a regular day at work driving back from a job site when the day erupted that fateful moment turned into the worst single act of domestic terrorism prior to September 11th I was in a pothole patching unit at the time I was a crew chief at that time and there's a actual burner on the truck that keeps the bed warm to keep the asphalt warm well it'll backfire sometimes with the propane gas so when the bomb went off I asked Dennis I said you turn that burn on this morning he said no I haven't touched it Mike and when I looked in my rearview mirror my side mirror I saw the big plume of smoke so I knew something had blew up Public Works Crews were directed to Northwest 5ifth and Harvey to assist with rescue and Recovery once on scene Crews were taken back at the war zone appearance we ventured off and went and looked and when we got close enough to the site I regretted that I went over there to be honest with you I can remember that like it happened yesterday that's how Vivid those memories are for me before the bombing uh we always responded to weather related events tornadoes floods uh wind storms we didn't have any actual training until right after the bombing was when we officially established our Emergency Response Team prior to the bombing Cruz did not have Emergency Operations training but it was an all handson deck reaction whatever resources that were that were needed that we had available to us we we had everything on site Crews provided heavy machinery and skilled operators provided a coordinated effort with local police fire contractors and other agencies but as far as the team everybody was working together the Oklahoma standard was coined from this type of can do effort thank you to these hidden Heroes
