Credit union president survived while many in office perished
By Michele Holtkamp
Tribune-Star
As Florence Rogers and her employees unlocked the doors to the federal credit union that Wednesday morning, everything seemed normal.
It was about 9 a.m. on April 19, 1995 - time for the credit union to open as employees in the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building went on their first coffee break of the day.
Usually people lined up at the door, but today only one man was doing his banking as Rogers, president and chief executive officer of the credit union, sat down for a meeting with seven of her employees. Her secretary was close by.
The tellers waited on the man, and he made his way back to the elevators. His receipt was stamped 9:01 a.m.
"The fact that he had gotten around to the elevator, that's what saved his life," Rogers said.
Just seconds later, a blast ripped through the building. Rogers was blown backwards, and the seven sitting in front of her dropped to their deaths in the rubble created when Timothy McVeigh's truck bomb went off.
Not a piece of paper was left in the credit union, but Florence Rogers was.
Only 18 square inches of flooring remained in the office; Rogers somehow was blown onto them. Someone pulled her to safety through a stairwell window.
Rogers climbed aboard a medical bus and for more than an hour rode around with other people who were bleeding, cut and bruised. Realizing she wasn't seriously injured, she got off at medical triage unit along the street.
Meanwhile her son, who worked across the street from the Murrah Building, had rushed over when he heard the explosion. Desperately searching for his mother, he went to a nearby hospital where names of patients were being written on the wall as they were brought in. Minutes ticked as he watched the list grow.
Blocks away, a medical worker had sent Rogers to an apartment building down the street to use the phone. But the only number she could think of was to a little restaurant in her hometown where her sister worked and where Rogers' friends had gathered to watch the events unfold on TV and await word on her.
When Rogers called, her sister "just burst into tears" and said "Oh my God, you're alive," Rogers recalled. Her sons were paged, then the entire family gathered at her home to watch the rescue efforts.
Her only immediate medical need was a tetanus shot.
But a knot on her rear end from being catapulted through the air still hasn't gone away.
"It reminds me of Timothy McVeigh every time I look in the mirror," she said.
A year later, she had surgery on some vertebrates in her neck that were damaged in the fall.
Less than 48 hours after McVeigh's bombing, Rogers was back at work. Employees needed money to pay for funerals, and Rogers was determined they'd get it.
That's the only way she made it through the horror of watching 18 of her 33 employees fall to their deaths, she said. She knew 85 of the 168 people who were killed.
"I just stay busy all day every day," Rogers said from her large home in an Oklahoma City subdivision. "God has given me incredible strength that I didn't know I had."
She was 59 at the time of the bombing. Now 65, Rogers has retired - sort of. As she took a break from finishing her wicker furniture and cleaning out her garage, she said she's stayed involved with memorial foundations and fund-raising efforts. Money donated will pay for the education of the 14 children of those workers killed in her office.
"I watched them get married and have babies," Rogers said. "They were my family."
"The legacy of my credit union girls will go on, and I'm proud of that."
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