Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Sunday Morning

New Federal Building in Oklahoma City

Aired April 28, 2002 - 07:22   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: In Oklahoma City, it's with very mixed emotions that citizens are watching a new federal building go up. Last week marked the seventh anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing. CNN national correspondent Gary Tuchman asked some people how they're feeling.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They're constructing a new federal building in Oklahoma City, right across the street from the old one, the one that Timothy McVeigh blew up with a bomb, where 168 people died and are now memorialized.

Diana McDonald works for the Department of Housing and Urban Development and is a survivor of the 1995 domestic terrorist attack.

DIANA MCDONALD, HUD EMPLOYEE: I don't want what happened to me seven years ago to be brought back on me. I don't want to live it everyday.

TUCHMAN: And that's what she says she'd be doing because Diana McDonald and her coworkers have just informed by HUD secretary, Mel Martinez, that their office will be moving into the new building, which has a direct view of where 35 of their HUD office coworkers were killed.

MCDONALD: It's not that we don't want to be in a federal building or in a -- on a federal passage. We just don't want to be there.

TUCHMAN: These seven HUD employees say they still undergo counseling and some still nurse physical injuries. Being next to the site of the terrorist attack, they say, is too much for them to psychologically take.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Everyone that sat around died. I don't know why. I'm here today other than God didn't want me -- to take me that day.

CALVIN MOSER, HUD EMPLOYEE: We had a verbal commitment and we had it in writing from not just one secretary, the current secretary, but the previous secretary said -- also said, in writing, that we would not have to go. TUCHMAN: But Secretary Martinez has now decided to change his mind, saying, in this post September 11 world, not moving would, in a sense, be bowing to terrorism.

Diane Duly (ph), also a survivor, works for the Department of Veterans Affairs. She's also scheduled to move into the new building and is content with the move.

DIANE DULY, DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS EMPLOYEE: I think it just shows resilience that, OK, you changed it, but you didn't change us that much.

TUCHMAN: HUD secretary, Martinez, would not comment on camera, but his office released a statement saying, "The Department of Housing and Urban Development, like Americans everywhere, will not bow to terrorists nor will they let them deter us from serving the public."

The mayor of Oklahoma City acknowledges there are also economic factors at play, but supports the decision by the HUD secretary.

MAYOR KIRK HUMPHREYS, OKLAHOMA CITY: What we cannot do as a society is whenever terrorists blow something up and make a bare space in what was an active, urban area. We can't just leave that vacant and bare.

TUCHMAN (on-camera): The new federal building is scheduled to open by the end of 2003. As of yet, the federal employees affected have not been directly told they'll lost their jobs if they don't come here.

(voice-over): But Diana McDonald believes the inference is loud and clear.

(on-camera): Did they say to you, you will not have a job if you don't move into the new building?

MCDONALD: I won't have a job. I won't have a job. I can't -- I cant' go back there. I can't look at that every day.

TUCHMAN (voice-over): Gary Tuchman, CNN, Oklahoma City.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com