Q&A: Rep. Frank Lucas on helping survivors and a nation’s response after the Oklahoma City bombing

Cheyenne, OK’s Frank Lucas is the only current member of the state’s delegation who was in office at the time of the attack on the Oklahoma City federal building. Until 2003, when Oklahoma lost a congressional district, Lucas represented what was then Oklahoma’s 6th district, which included the east side of Oklahoma City and the site of the bombing. Like others in the delegation, Lucas was in Dallas the morning of the atrocity, attending a Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) hearing.

Lucas recalls the long-term effort to help survivors heal and rebuild—and the overwhelming generosity shown by Americans across the country.

Q: What was your role in helping your constituents recover from the bombing?

“We spent five years helping people decide whether they wanted to continue to work for the federal government. Did they want to retire? Could they be in the same building in a place where they'd be a target ever again? For five years.

“I've never been in the military. I've never been in law enforcement. But I and my good folks spent years working with folks who, when you looked in their eye, you could see the shock and the trauma. Having your best friends go away all around you or almost going away or being trapped…

“We did everything we could to help those survivors meet the immediate needs. To come to grips with the circumstances and decide what they were going to— a lot of them retired out, and I couldn't blame them. Some wanted to continue working, but didn't want to work in that particular area again.

“That was a big part of my and staff's job—making sure federal resources helped in the immediate aftermath, but working with our fellow Oklahomans, our fellow citizens—both federal employees and not—as they tried to come to grips with their injuries, both physical and emotional, and get on with their lives. I'm particularly proud that—it wasn't sexy, it wasn't exciting—but I'm proud of the folks on my staff and the good work we did with a lot of people.”

Q: What moments of support from outside Oklahoma stand out to you?

“The governor put together a fund to help the young people who’d lost their family—education benefits, that sort of stuff—and there were funds put together to address other things.

“And I guess I’d come back from Oklahoma City, been here a month or so, and I had a member of Congress from New Jersey, Jim Saxton, call me up one day and he said, ‘My community wants to help your community, and we've been doing some fundraising and they'd like to present a check to Oklahoma City, to the Survivors Fund. Would you come up and receive it?’

“‘Well, of course, Jim.’ I mean, somebody's community wants to help my people. I'm going to go say thank you.

“Well, this is 1995, numbers have changed a little bit. So, we fly on a little bitty plane on a foggy day up to New Jersey. And I go to this high school gymnasium, and there's the high school band, the gym's full, the cheerleaders are out—it just was the most amazing kind of a pep rally in honor of Oklahoma City.

“And they had this big check—paper—with a little cover over it, and they pointed out how many car washes they'd done and how much this they'd done and that they'd done, and they jerked the ribbon. It was $100,000. $100,000 from a community in New Jersey to help the good folks in Oklahoma City.

“Now, being a good representative of Oklahoma, I thanked them profusely, once I picked my jaw up off the floor. I mean, that was a lot of money in 1995! But they wanted to help and they stepped up.

“Now, we make a lot of jokes about folks in the north and folks in New Jersey and folks in California. But that day, those good folks—they didn’t have to do that... $100,000. It just—after the tragedy, the bombing—it was one of those many moments that helped restore my faith in my fellow human beings, no matter where they lived in this great country.”