TERROR IN OKLAHOMA CITY : Somber and Shaken, Downtown Workers Return to Their Jobs : Tragedy: Shattered glass and the smell of death are constant reminders of the nearby horror. Hugs, counseling help employees cope.

OKLAHOMA CITY —  The people of this shaken city went back to work Monday, hoping to resume normal lives. But with a bomb-crater hole in its heart, and the smell of death in the air, that was not easy.

Most offices, restaurants and shops surrounding the blast site were open for business as rescue workers cautiously moved concrete in the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building to uncover an estimated 150 bodies that remained buried under debris five days after the terrorist attack.

But there was no such thing as normal.

“The biggest problem today was the odor, the smell of death,” said Lindsay Cullen, an Oklahoma Gas & Electric Co. supervisor. “We’re on our way back to routine. Not normal, routine.”

Despite sunny skies and springtime temperatures near 60 degrees, the specter of death haunted the Oklahoma capital. Crisis counselors were made available to many workers. “You try to go on like nothing happened, but you can’t,”’ said Jonnie Calton, an accounting manager at a printing company.

Said Joan Bagett, a county employee: “Everybody is hugging a lot.” The mood was somber in her office, where one worker lost two children in the explosion and was forced out of her home near the federal building because it was damaged.

The signs of the horror that ripped through the city Wednesday morning are inescapable. Streets blocks away from ground zero are still littered with glass. Hundreds of downtown windows are covered with plywood. Downtown exits from the major interstate highways that pass through the city are blocked off. Most motorists continued to drive with their headlights on, and blue and white memorial lapel ribbons were still as common as cowboy hats.

In the red newspaper boxes on the corners, the Daily Oklahoman’s headline declares: “A Time to Grieve.”

“I used to look at downtown as a safe place,” said Justin Beaver, 23, who works for a print shop in the high-rise financial district two blocks south the federal building. “Now I wonder: Is this building safe? Am I safe?”

A four-block area around the federal building, which includes 75 other buildings, has been declared off limits, roped off with yellow police tape. State and local police stand at street corners everywhere while National Guard troops in camouflage fatigues sit in Humvees parked in alleys.

A few blocks from the federal building, a sign at the Oklahoma Gas & Electric structure reads: “You are now entering the most dangerous area in the OG&E; system.” Ironically, that sign was posted to warn pedestrians about traffic. But it also was an ominous reminder of what lay just beyond the “do not cross” police tape.

Still, people were trying to do what they normally do on a Monday morning.

“Business is pretty much as usual, although people are a little more somber and doing a lot more hugging,” said Kevin Caddenhead, 27, manager of the Chick-Fil-A, a fast-food restaurant downtown. “And they seem to be taking their time over lunch. There’s less rush, less of the that hurry-scurry world.”

Most of those returning to work Monday had not seen their colleagues since their buildings were rocked and glass was sent flying on Wednesday. “Everybody is sharing their stories,” said John J. Garvey, a county clerk, whose office is two blocks south of the federal building.

Garvey said that most people seemed to think that they needed to come to work. “Every day since Wednesday has seemed like the same day,” he said. “All their talk has been about the bombing. Now people want some sense of normalcy.”

“We’re just trying to talk it out with one another,” said W. L. Kerlick, security manager for the Bank of Oklahoma, where windows were blown out by the explosion a few blocks away. The bank was open for business Monday with a crisis counselor on hand to lead group discussions.

Still, a few employees stayed away from the job, said bank President Wayne D. Stone. “We have people who don’t want to put their backs to the glass. They don’t believe our structural engineers who say everything is fine.”

At the county building, several workers said it was hard to come to work Monday. Denise Austin, a land analyst for the assessor’s office, said that she was all nerves all weekend. When her ice maker at home went off, “I just jumped,” she said.

At City Hall, dozens of workers came on the first day they could reclaim their cars from the bomb zone, including family members of victims.

One of Oklahoma’s biggest employers, Kerr-McGee Corp., which produces and refines oil, has hired a crisis management team to help its 900 downtown workers deal with the aftermath of the bombing. Two blocks from the federal building, the Kerr-McGee office complex lost 92 windows and three days of work.

“The mood is somber but one of togetherness,” said company spokesman Dow Dozier. ‘People are angry. They don’t understand it but they are coming to accept it.”

Cheryl Scroggins--whose husband, a worker with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and a father of two young boys, perished in the explosion--was among those seeking to retrieve the family car.

“It’s another piece of the story that I want to get behind me,” she said. “I just want to get it back home.”

Parking lot manager Don Robar, 55, said he sees “just a lot of sadness” in his regular customers. “People who are happy-go-lucky, aren’t. It’s just not there.”

Nonetheless, until late Monday at least one major event here, the annual Festival of the Arts, was to begin as scheduled in the downtown Festival Plaza and Myriad Gardens.

At the last minute, however, officials canceled the event. “In the best interests of healing the community, this was not the right time to have this,” said Rick Moore, assistant to the mayor.