We arrived in Joplin around 4:00 this afternoon. Mark Rohr (city manager and Brother-in-law) took us around town. The stories from he and his wife Lois, who has lived in Joplin her whole life were incredible.
All I can really say right now is that the cliche “seeing it on TV doesn’t do it justice” is so true here. We drove around for over 1 hour and really only went from the starting point of the tornado to the ending point. We stopped a couple times to look around, but the amount of devastation is incredible. Many of the pictures in the web album below are from locations that are already “cleaned up”.
6 miles path…3/4 mile wide! Nearly everything gone!
They are doing a great job with clean up and many places are already beginning to rebuild. Walgreen’s has 2 new stores going up. Walmart and Home Depot are building. Home Depot is actually open right now in a large tent.
They still have a ton of work to do…don’t forget them!
One way to help is to donate through many of the websites…
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Joplin 2011 |
Here is another web album of the city:
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August 9, 2011 |