OKLAHOMA CITY: AFTER THE BOMB : Explosion’s Toll on Another Casualty--Buildings--Is Tallied : Bombing: In all, 347 structures suffered an estimated $300 million to $400 million in damage. It is Oklahoma’s most costly disaster, officials say.

As the death toll has risen slowly in this wounded city, so has another--the number of buildings damaged and flattened by a blast that spread its destructive fingers across downtown like a small earthquake, striking historic churches and humble businesses alike.

After a week of inspections, local officials announced Thursday what they believe will be the final count: 312 buildings with smashed windows or minor damage, 10 that have collapsed and 25 with enough structural damage to make them unsafe.

President Clinton has declared the area a federal disaster area, making those affected eligible for a variety of federal aid programs. Oklahoma insurance agents said that it is the most expensive disaster in the state’s history, estimating that the damage to private property will range from $300 million to $400 million, possibly more.

The evidence is scattered around downtown, which is a patchwork collection of corporate office towers, vacant lots, mom-and-pop businesses and what is left of the area’s older buildings. The damage reaches as far as 1 1/2 miles from the mangled hulk of the bombed Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.

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On a few blocks containing small businesses, fresh plywood covers nearly every window. Yellow police tapes flutter in the spring breeze, guarding nondescript commercial buildings, some of which look as though a giant has stepped on them.

Most of the structures that collapsed, some of which were vacant before the blast, fell during the bombing. But last weekend, a weakened one-story speedometer shop crashed to the ground, fortunately creaking enough beforehand to give its occupants time to rush outside.

In one 24-story apartment building constructed of concrete near the bombing site, windows were blown across rooms and inside, officials said, it looks like a tornado had hit. Items were knocked off tabletops; plasterboard and paneling peeled off the walls.

On Wednesday, a weakened wall of the historic 1923 Journal Record building was pulled down by workers, one more reminder of the toll that the bombing has taken on a downtown that has struggled through various renewal efforts.

“I haven’t come around to admitting that we’ve lost any buildings,” said city Planning Director Garner Stoll, referring to those declared unsafe. “It doesn’t mean we can’t fix them. We don’t know if we can or not.”

Included on the list of 25 structurally damaged buildings are the YMCA building and the 1903 First United Methodist Church, which also lost most of its 30 original stained-glass windows.

The city’s oldest church, 106-year-old St. Joseph’s Cathedral, suffered some damage, as did the slightly younger St. Paul’s Cathedral. The state Water Resources Board building, where four people died, was almost totally destroyed.

The corporate heart of downtown seems to have largely escaped serious damage but many small businesses housed in older buildings on the ragged fringes of the district were not so lucky.

Robert Simmons stood just a few blocks from the bombed Murrah building Wednesday morning, staring at the sunken roof and crumbling walls of a commercial property that his family has owned for decades. Workers were shoveling debris into a dumpster and Simmons was planning reconstruction.

“It’s a lot of trouble. But we’re going to do it,” said Simmons, who had leased the two buildings on the lot to a vending machine company and furniture refinishing business.

“These are mostly small businesses in here. It’s going to hurt financially,” said Simmons, who like so many others here was wearing a ribbon in memory of the blast victims. “But I think everybody has the will to recover so we’re on the road. We’ve got to.”

With millions of dollars of insurance payments and federal disaster aid on the horizon, Stoll said that the tragedy need not be another severe blow to a downtown that lost many of its fine old buildings to urban renewal efforts of the 1960s and ‘70s and then slumped with the oil and savings and loan busts of the 1980s.

“It all depends,” he said. “If we use the insurance funds and disaster relief funds and if we stay downtown and rebuild, I think that in the long run, there could be a silver lining.”

It can only help that other parts of downtown are slated for $260 million worth of redevelopment projects funded by a recently approved one-cent sales tax increase. A ballpark, sports arena, new public library and river walk are planned nearby.