One of my friends said it best: “I have no words.”
The May 22 tornado that touched down across a third of Joplin is too big, too all-encompassing to describe. It is as if God reached down with one giant finger and drew a line through the heart of my hometown, obliterating everything in His path.
My family was lucky. The tornado passed north of our home by less than its three-quarter mile width. During the storm, we watched as trees shook and waves of rain washed over neighboring roofs, but we had no idea that anything had happened until we started receiving phone calls asking if we were all right.
That night, we felt impotent, scared and driven. We wanted more than anything to help those that we could. Our whole world was sirens driving through town to the east or coming down Interstate 44 to the south. We had no electricity and no means of communication, but we were desperate for knowledge and to help whomever we could. When we finally thought to turn to our car radio, the on-air personalities were telling us to stay in our homes so as not to impede emergency workers.
My brother came home about an hour later. He and his family were soaking wet. They had rubble in their hair and on their clothes. He said they’d been in the Range Line Wal-Mart. The store collapsed around them, and they had to dig themselves out. They were lucky to be alive.
Not as lucky as others. I heard accounts from friends who lived near Range Line. One watched as a roof fell onto a family of four. Another saw a 12-year-old girl emerge from a pile of rubble with a tree branch impaled through her thigh.
On May 23, I was in the middle of the destruction, taking pictures. I walked Range Line, trekked up to Wal-Mart and over to Home Depot. I walked the streets of our highly populated commercial area that is now a war zone.
You get lost in it. I’ve called Joplin my home since I was a child, and I know the city like the back of my hand. But in the wake of the tornado, everything has changed.
Landmarks that for my whole life seemed unmovable and unshakable were suddenly gone. Landscapes that I can recall like photographs from my mind don’t exist anymore.
My wife and I spent that first night in shock, wondering how anything could ever be the same. It cannot. Too many places and too many lives were destroyed on Sunday for Joplin to ever be the city it was before May 22, 2011.
But in walking the rubble, in seeing and talking to the people digging through what remains of their homes, I realized something else. Although it will never be the same, I know now that it will still be. Joplin will not go away. We will not give up or run off to hide in a hole. We will not go gentle into that good night.
We will rebuild as best we can. With the help of our neighbors, we will stand each other up and dust each other off. We will accept what has been given to us and we will shoulder it with pride and strength.
I, for one, am prouder now than I’ve ever been to be a Joplinite. This is my home, and these are my people. And I will be there to help them any way I can.
Joplin Tri-State Business Journal Reporter David Mink can be reached at dmink@joplintristate.biz.[[In-content Ad]]
