U.S. Water News Online
OKLAHOMA CITY -- Operations of the Oklahoma Water
Resources
Board are slowly returning to some semblance of order after the
board's offices were
left in a shambles after the terroristic bomb attack on the Alfred P.
Murrah
Federal Office Building in Oklahoma City on April 19. The water
board,
however, will never be the same after two of its personnel were
killed in the
blast and three others were hospitalized with injuries.
The Oklahoma Water Resources Building, located at the corner of
Harvey and
Northwest Fifth streets, was located literally across the street from
the
bombed federal building. The bomb crater actually is located within
200 feet
of the water resources building on the south curb of Northwest Fifth
Street.
Trudy Rigney, a 31-year-old geographic information system
assistant serving
an internship with the water resources board, and Robert Neal
Chipman, a
51-year-old financial analyst, died in the explosion. Rigney, a
single mother
who had worked as an intern for the water resources board since last
October,
had hoped to continue working there after graduation from the
University of
Oklahoma this month, said Gary Thompson, chairman of the
university's
geography department. The tragic death of Rigney follows the death of
one of
the department's meteorologists in the American Eagle airplane crash
in
Illinois last October.
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