Fewer Children Are Listed Among Missing

It has been one of the most-dreaded images awaiting this city, the discovery that no rescue worker has wanted to make: unearthing the concrete tomb that was once the America’s Kids day-care center.

Now, in one of the few glimmers of good news to emerge from a week of unfathomable horror, the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building may not, after all, hold such a gruesome pocket of tiny bodies.

On Wednesday, coroner’s officials sharply scaled back the number of children believed lost in the blast, saying that frantic relatives had reported some youngsters as unaccounted for more than once. Only five children are now listed among the missing, instead of the 20 or 25 thought still to be sandwiched under the tons of rubble.

“We had initial reports of a lot more missing children than it appears we have,” said Ray Blakeney, director of operations for the state medical examiner’s office. “There was a possibility that when they got to the day-care area, they might find a group of children. I don’t think that’s going to be the case.”

One family, he said, reported a child missing six or seven times in the confusion that followed the April 19 car bombing. Another five children, also believed to have been buried somewhere inside the ravaged building, have since turned up unharmed.

“It’s just a continuous process of eliminating,” said Blakeney, adding that he was grateful the city would be spared the heartache of having dozens more toddlers pulled from the wreckage.

The death toll, which rose to 98 on Wednesday, includes 14 children. More than 100 people, all adults, remain on the list of missing.

The image of a juvenile sepulcher, frozen in time by the 9:02 a.m. explosion, has haunted the rescue operation all week, as fire officials have predicted almost every day that their discovery of the child-care center was imminent.

But authorities on Wednesday, providing a more detailed description of the blast site, said that whatever they uncover will likely be so decimated and snarled that very little of it will bear a resemblance to the America’s Kids facility.

“I think there’s a perception that there’s this layering effect,” said Fire Chief Gary Marrs, trying to dispel the notion that his crews are able to peel back layers of stone like archeologists. “It’s crumbled and mixed up and jumbled. It’s all just rubble and debris.”

Rescue teams, still picking through the clutter by hand, have focused their efforts on three distinct sections, which they have dubbed “The Cave,” “The Pit” and “The Pancake.”

The Cave is actually the basement area, accessible only by the parking garage, in which firefighters found many of their earliest fatalities--as well as their last survivor. The Pit is a spot in the center of the structure, where three floors collapsed into the basement. Forming its outer wall is The Pancake, also known as The Pile, where the nine-story building crumpled into a mountainous slope of rubble.

The day-care center, once located on the second floor, is believed to be near the bottom of that pancake. Firefighters say they have touched the fringes of it, finding a few stuffed animals and coloring books. But even when they get there, officials caution, there probably will be few signs that they have arrived.

“This is not like an earthquake, where a building falls into itself,” said Maj. John Long, an Oklahoma City firefighter. “The underneath part of this building was basically blown out. You got nine stories in one large pile.”

Even so, fire officials redoubled their deployment on Wednesday, increasing the number of rescue workers inside the structure at any given time from about 100 to 220. Despite high winds that swirled dust and loose debris, the building has become stable enough for workers to begin removing the large slabs of collapsed concrete that had impeded earlier efforts, officials said.

Although firefighters continued to sound upbeat when describing the spirit of cooperation that has marked their mission, there is a growing concern among some officials about the psychological toll that the grim operation is extracting. When a small child was found in the wreckage Tuesday night, the firefighter who had the unenviable task of removing the body was reportedly overcome with grief.

“The emotional toll is beginning to mount,” said Tom Louden, a Salvation Army official. “It’s very difficult to keep up the physical and emotional strength.”

The 24-hour-a-day search was halted only for a minute on Wednesday--60 seconds of silence to commemorate the one-week anniversary of the blast. Gov. Frank Keating blew a whistle and then briefly joined hands with his wife, Cathy, at the ruined building. The droning sound of cranes removing rubble ceased. At least one officer removed his glasses and wiped a tear; another worker made the sign of a cross.

“It was just an amazing scene of humanity and goodness,” Gov. Keating said afterward. “I think we’ve learned that we can be nice to each other without losing anything, that we can be vulnerable without being preyed upon.”

Just as the minute was being marked, a convoy of 55 big rigs pulled into town, led by two truckers from Salinas, Calif., who had solicited donations and picked up followers along the way. They arrived at the American Red Cross here, bearing a coffee can that contained a bit more than $1,000, almost all of it in coins and small bills.

“It was like a moment frozen in time,” said Bucky Kilbourne, a Red Cross official. “Big, burly men and women, some of them crying just like babies.”

Meanwhile, a huge C-130 Hercules airplane spent all morning crisscrossing the downtown area as a team of federal investigators compiled a photographic record of the city’s damaged core.

Police Sgt. Bill Martin compared it to the work of homicide detectives documenting a crime scene. The difference being that this crime scene is so big that its entirety can only be photographed from the air.

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