JoMo

Tomorrow it'll be 2 years since the Joplin tornado. Rebuilding is still going strong. Had a scare last night with an area of rotation to our southwest that passed south of the city, but the sirens did sound 3 times. Thanks to the 176,869+ volunteers who have helped Joplin continue to rebuild. http://www.joplinglobe.com/tornadomay2011/x730882007/FACES-OF-RECOVERY-176-869-volunteers-help-put-Joplin-together-again Joplin is sending help to Moore, OK. I know a lot of local churches are collecting things as well. http://www.koamtv.com/story/22378452/joplin-to-moore-we-understand-and-were-here-for-you Reuters story about Joplin and Moore: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/21/us-usa-tornadoes-joplin-idUSBRE94K1AA20130521 Janet Napolitano will be in Joplin tomorrow to give an award to Joplin. http://www.joplinglobe.com/topstories/x319992436/Janet-Napolitano-to-speak-at-tornado-anniversary-ceremony

Coming up on the 2 year anniversary since the tornado in a couple of weeks. On the anniversary this year, the city is going to have a 'picnic-like' atmosphere at Cunningham park with individual booths setup from various organizations highlighting the achievements in the past 2 years. http://www.ksdk.com/news/article/378596/3/Joplin-to-host-program-commemorating-2nd-anniversary-of-tornado Drury University will be there gathering stories. (it's a little late for that since stories change IMO) They've been very active since the tornado. http://www.joplinglobe.com/local/x508494364/Drury-students-to-document-stories-of-the-Joplin-tornado Mercy Hospital (to replace St. Johns) is still on schedule. They are actually working with companies to create stronger glass. Right now they plan to have 110 MPH glass in all public areas, 140 MPH glass in patient rooms and 250 MPH glass in ICU rooms. They are also hardening their generators and central areas. Much more can be read here: http://www.healthleadersmedia.com/page-1/COM-291727/Mercy-Readies-TornadoTough-450M-Joplin-Hospital Will Norton Miracle Field recently had their first game a few days ago. It's a baseball field that was created so children with disabilities could play baseball. The playing surface is rubberized to prevent injuries. 47 players from age 5-20 played in their first game. (photo KZRG) Mennonite Disaster Services recently concluded their operations in Joplin. They were a huge help. 3,300+ volunteers served and they completed 125 cleanups, 23 minor repairs, 25 major repairs and nine new builds as well as well as 12 new builds that they didn't completely finish. http://www.mennoworld.org/2013/4/29/mds-concludes-joplin-project/ Joplin Habitat for Humanity has finished 66 homes since the tornado. An article with some information about storm shelters, the cost, and it mentions that about 1/2 of new homes constructed in Joplin now have storm shelters. You can also see a picture of the new Community Storm Shelter at Irving school. http://www.joplinglobe.com/cnhi_special_projects/x6223380/Against-the-wind-Tornado-veterans-balance-preparedness-practicality

New video... can't really tell much from it though. Joplin Schools settled the lawsuit against them for the debris removal: http://www.lebanondailyrecord.com/news/state/article_8f491d6a-20b6-5357-b44a-d75268fd79c6.html A man is going to prison for disaster fraud after lying to FEMA and trying to get disaster benefits. http://ozarksfirst.com/fulltext?nxd_id=797812 Also at 26th and Main (where the Salvation Army store was and what was identified as a 'Bowling Alley' by Tim Marshall) is going to be a grocery store with loft apartments. The land has been purchased for a retirement village/area near 26th and Maiden Lane across from where the hospital was. So there are many projects planned and underway in the tornado zone. Also a loft and grocery store and retail area is planned by 20th and Connecticut. http://www.joplinglobe.com/local/x1097425497/Master-developer-plans-project-at-26th-and-Main Here's a breakdown of all the building permits issued. http://www.joplinglobe.com/local/x2094922563/Joplin-s-rebuilding-numbers-show-no-signs-of-letting-up An estimated 8,100 trees have been replanted after the estimated loss of 15,000-20,000.

That was frightening and quick.

A couple of important things have happened recently. It was announced that the FEMA trailer park would be cleared by the June 7th deadline. Out of 586 units after the tornado, 32 are left. 21 of those have plans for permanent housing. 11 others do not have a plan but FEMA will donate the 11 housing units to Catholic Charities and the city will pay to have them moved to other trailer parks or properties. Catholic Charities will then be involved in case management in order to get the occupants of those 11 housing units permanent housing. Steel started going up at the new Joplin High School yesterday. The old high school would have probably been right across from the church in the background. I think the apartments on the left side are the Hampshire Terrace II apartments. (since the original ones were destroyed) And the houses on the right side of the pic are all rebuilt from nothing after the tornado. Rebuild Joplin recently completed their 59th house. They have it down to a science almost and Toyota came in and helped streamline the process. http://www.joplinglobe.com/topstories/x1221093473/Rebuild-Joplin-celebrates-opening-of-59th-house Jeff and Kathryn Piotrowski were on Reed Timmer's podcast earlier tonight. They announced they would be planting trees in Joplin this Spring. Jeff has some of the most entertaining storm chaser stories I have ever heard including Joplin. They should add the podcast on their website in a few days. Jeff tells some amazing chasing stories. http://tvnweather.com/podcasts

Well, it's been another month or so since I last updated. There's still a lot of homes and businesses being built, Goodwill just reopened for instance. I find it amazing how quickly you get used to new surroundings. For the next 5 days or so (maybe longer) you can get the Kindle edition of Randy Turner's new book "Scars from the Tornado" for free. It's basically all about East Middle School (where he teaches) It has stories from students about what they experienced, etc... http://www.amazon.com/Scars-from-the-Tornado-ebook/dp/B00BPSRTDC/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1362925081&sr=8-2&keywords=Scars+from+the+Tornado The number of people still at the FEMA trailer park is now down to 35 or fewer. The Tornado Services Center there is closing at the end of the month. http://www.joplinglobe.com/topstories/x36439010/Tornado-services-center-to-close-soon Sean Casey with the TIV and Don Burgess stopped by East and North Middle School a few days ago as part of the Tornado Alley Outreach tour. http://www.joplinglobe.com/topstories/x564672665/Vortex-2-tornado-chasing-team-visits-East-and-North-middle-schools A group from New York was in Joplin learning how to rebuild and recover after Sandy. http://www.joplinglobe.com/topstories/x564665821/New-Yorkers-in-Joplin-to-study-rebuilding-efforts-to-help-Hurricane-Sandy-victims Habitat for Humanity will finish 71 total houses since the Joplin tornado by the anniversary that is just 2 short months away and workers completed the steel skeleton for the new Mercy hospital last week.

It's a very nice report. I've been looking for this video for some time. It's taken at the KSN parking lot I believe which is at 1502 Cleveland Ave. Their tower cam got the tornado and it's been posted before. This camera is facing south and maybe southeast towards the end. I believe they are talking about that lighter looking funnel shaped cloud that is hanging pretty low to them and they are worried about it touching down as well. The tornado takes up the left 1/2 of the entire background at this time. I believe I saw that lighter looking cloud when I looked out the window right before the tornado hit. I believed it was part of the wall cloud. Anyone know if that's what it is?

Great report. I remember reading the articles that you got some of that information from, very engaging well written blog. A couple of pictures I had not seen either. Just a few things. 7th and Blackcat is on the northwest side of Joplin. Also: "At 5:31 pm, prodded on by information from Piotrowski and the Springfield NWS office, Stammer took the unprecedented step to activate the city’s sirens for a second time." I believe that's what Stammer said in one of the newspaper articles, but that's not correct. The tornado was on the ground before the second sirens sounded as evidenced by the Jeff P. chase video and the sirens had just started sounding when it was crossing over Schifferdecker. I would estimate that it was 5:35 or 5:36 at that time and the tornado had already moved through the Cedar Ridge subdivision without sirens sounding. "A life flight helicopter was blown from the top of the hospital and destroyed." This was from the NWS report. The helicopter never landed on the roof. It landed beside the ER, where it basically was in the picture taken of it after the tornado. "The big-box store was no match for the fury of the wind, and a large exterior wall collapsed on Wells as he led two children to safety. All three were killed." While true, the father of the kids was also killed and he still had them in his arms when the concrete wall crushed all four of them. "including Sports Academy" It's Academy Sports.

Joplin Globe ran a story today about the fungus and about a couple of people who impacted and where they think the fungus may have came from. Fungus: *Largest documented cluster of apophysomyces cases in the world. *Needs to be deeply implanted into the skin to start an infection. *Is not a human disease, so it doesn't know how to react in the human body and the body doesn't know how to fight it. *Grows extremely rapidly. *Possibly came from a couple of ponds early in the tornado path, since this type of fungus grows well in water. (these would be the same ponds where Will Norton's body was recovered, and it's about 1/4-1/2 mile from me) Steven Weersing: 17 years old now. *Chances of survival were placed at 5-10% *Doctors cut away four ribs and part of his chest wall to stop the fungus. *He's having a baby... his girlfriend's due date is May 22nd. Patients continue fight with rare fungus contracted after tornado http://www.joplinglobe.com/topstories/x1633471446/Patients-continue-fight-with-rare-fungus-contracted-during-tornado If you want to see a picture of Steven Weersing's giant chest scar mentioned in the above story: http://davideulitt.com/#/joplin-tornado/portrait_joplin_tornado_scars_2 EDIT:As of Feb 12th..... Joplin has crossed over the 1,003,000+ work hours mark from 160,000+ registered volunteers. 84% of the properties that were damaged or destroyed are under permit for reconstruction/repairs.

Another monthly update: The FEMA housing site is now down to 45 families. That's down from 75 in December and a peak of 586 after the tornado. FEMA started charging rent in November and it cleared out pretty quickly after that. 55 senior housing units will be opening soon which will probably lead to a further reduction in the number of people living there. Charity groups are still working in Joplin to rebuild homes: http://www.joplinglobe.com/local/x1633467743/Joplin-family-grateful-to-guardian-angels-for-new-home http://www.prweb.com/releases/2013/1/prweb10373304.htm Missouri National Guard recently pulled out the last soldier it had in Joplin. It once had 377 men/women assigned to the area. http://www.joplinglobe.com/topstories/x503834416/Missouri-National-Guard-pulls-out-last-soldier-assigned-to-help-area-after-2011-tornado And yes... lots of people are still scared to death of storms... http://ozarksfirst.com/fulltext?nxd_id=760502 A few concept renderings of the new Joplin High School and Franklin Technology Center:

yeah, his youtube channel is still active at youtube.com/will His last video was after the Feb 1st 2011 snowstorm. He made this video in 2009, saying he nearly died during a bad storm and that he shouldn't worry about the weather since he drives a Hummer. Tornado: 1, Hummer: 0.

Nope, St. Johns was on 26th and Maiden Lane and the new hospital is at 50th and Main. The new site gives them access to I-44 which is seen in the picture. Here's the vision for the old St. Johns site. Haven't heard anything about the museum but Mercy planted wildflowers at their Memorial Garden a few weeks ago. Stained Glass Theater took possession of their donated land and are working towards raising enough money to rebuild. The school is in the process of building.

It's been a month or so since an update. There's still a lot of activity going on across the city, some of the new apartment complexes are springing up out of the ground and new construction is ongoing. 20th street is still pretty empty though and one of the complexes decided not to come back and it'll probably end up being the site of a Casey's General Store. The FEMA temporary housing was down to 75 households as of a week or two ago. It cleared out quicker than they thought it would once they announced that they would be charging rent. Habitat for Humanity has built 38 houses since the tornado and they are working on 33 more. Samaritans Purse continues their work here as well. Work on the school sites are mostly on schedule. Progress continues at the new Mercy Hospital. They posted that they have steel up to the 6th story in some places. Here's a photo they posted today of the construction site:

Been a bit since an update. Joplin is still recovering very well. New construction begins daily in the tornado zone. The Joplin High School site has got a lot of the groundwork started, although it was discovered that there are 6 mines on site that have to be filled. (we are an old zinc/lead mining community and Joplin is built on mines) The other schools are also in the process of being constructed as well. Mercy Hospital (St. Johns) hosted a wildflower planting at the site of the former hospital. 800 employees and former employees of the hospital planted some 5,000 packages on 9 acres. People are still uploading videos to youtube over a year and a half later. This was taken at 18th and Virginia, the tornado can be heard and it passed about 2-3 blocks south of this location. I'm pretty sure they mention that old myth about opening windows at the end. Dr. Huff (school superintendent) recently appeared at the Pop! Tech conference talking about the Joplin tornado and the response for the school point of view. He's a very sensitive guy.

Yep, Jamie lived in Duquense. The house he grew up in was destroyed. The rebuilding is going exceptionally well as 79% of the dwellings damaged/destroyed by the tornado are either rebuilt or under permit. Construction permits set a record as they topped $715 million, and that's not counting the High School or any of the master development plans. http://www.joplinglo...ce-2011-tornado

The FEMA deadline on the temporary housing units has been expanded until June 9th 2013, it had been set to expire on Nov 9th of this year. There had been 586 households there at one time, we are now down to 157 and FEMA expects that to fall below 120 after November. Residents will be charged rent starting in December. It will be $598 for a two bedroom and $761 for a three bedroom but families can seek rent reductions based on income. http://www.sacbee.com/2012/10/10/4897650/fema-to-keep-temporary-housing.html

I uploaded this image of St. John's hospital from roughly 1/2 mile away on Feb 13th 2012 or so. You can't see through the building so demolition had not begun yet on the exterior. This is a 9 story building. This is a picture of the last section still standing: And here it is without the hospital today, a little zoomed back so you get the horizion. It looks very different and has been hard to get used to:

After having technical difficulties yesterday, the last piece of St. Johns was brought down today at about 4:35 local time. It looks so weird and empty. I'll try to get some pic comparisons from when I took the pic right before they started demolishing and now that it's gone from the horizon. 9 story hospital used to be here: Photo from KZRG: And here it was after the tornado: Vid of the last portion going down from Joplin Globe. I found this video the other day, it was posted on Aug 30th. The guy says he was in his Chevy Blazer parked at St. Johns during the tornado. You can clearly see the extreme winds early on in the vid. *WARNING* This vid has very strong language.

Tomorrow the last of St. Johns hospital will be taken down. They thought they were going to complete it today but the last part was being a bit stubborn and refused to come down. St. Johns has been a landmark in Joplin since the 1960's. It was where you could locate where you were based on where it was on the horizon, especially after the tornado. I've had a lot of friends and family in that hospital and can't say I have the best memories of that place but it served it's purpose well. Photo from KZRG: St. Paul's first service will be Sept 9th at their rebuilt church. Elks Lodge will be open by Oct/Nov. http://www.koamtv.com/story/19411862/rebuilding-underway-at-elks-lodge-destroyed-in-tornado Restaurant Impossible is at the Joplin Boys and Girls club building something. It'll be on the show.

There's a very real "it can't happen to me" feeling that goes through you when a tornado is near. I experienced it despite all the evidence indicating that there was probably a tornado being produced from this storm. After seeing the couplet on the radar and the storm being directly west of me moving east, my first thoughts were that it was elevated rotation and not really on the ground. My second thoughts were that it was weak, not because it really was but because I wanted it to be. After hearing the rumbling and the wind, I was almost certain that it was a weak tornado that had passed directly over me because there wasn't enough damage produced, trees were still standing, and the only evidence I initially saw was the debris in the neighborhood which looked like about what you'd get during a thunderstorm anyway.But little did I know at the time that less than 3 blocks away was destroyed by the tornado. I really lucked out though and a last minute dip south of the storm may have saved my life. I think more people would have taken the threat more seriously if the tornado had been on the ground farther west. If people hear there's a tornado on the ground(via media, friends and family) in Riverton, KS or areas farther west then they would have been better informed or prepared. The fact that it dropped down so close to town is one factor as to why people probably didn't take it as seriously as they should have. I know the local TV Station showing the tornado as it was on the ground made people take it seriously because they had visible evidence of a tornado on the ground. Someone told me they were outside playing basketball with some neighbors, and one of their neighbors came outside and told them that there was a tornado approaching because they saw it on TV. Those people were able to get into their basements and houses and were all basically unharmed despite the tornado destroying their homes. The media did mess up though due to public reports. One of the radio stations reported a tornado at 7th and Rangeline which caused people who were driving to flee south directly into the actual tornado path at 15-20th and Rangeline when they would have been safe if they had continued driving north past 7th street. The tornado being wrapped in rain was another problem as it was difficult to see until it was too late because if you were facing the wrong direction the only thing you saw was a dark wall of rain and it looked nothing like the classic funnel of a tornado you see in the media. A lot of drivers probably thought this was just rain approaching. I do get your point though that maybe 'warning fatigue' does play a part since so many tornado warnings are issued and 'nothing happens'. This helps add to the 'that kind of thing only happens to other people' thought process. You have to remember that on May 24th. 2 days after Joplin and with a high risk in Oklahoma, they took the threat more seriously because of what had happened in Joplin. ------------------------------------- And to just add a short update. It looks like the hospital will be fully down by next week. There's just a small section of it left. 73% of the houses affected are either under permit, rebuilt, or rebuilding. There's building permits for an additional 965 apartments.

FINALLY! This was the video I had been looking for since I saw it last year. It does have cussing, primarily because it's pretty much raw emotion to what they are seeing. When I first saw it all, I pretty much felt the exact same way minus the freaking out. They turn left from Maiden Lane on to 26th street. At around 42 seconds or so they make it over a small hill on 26th, after that, they can see nothing but destruction on both sides of the street for as far as the eye can see.

Schools are back in session today. Year 2 of the temporary schools. Superintendent Dr. Huff went around and took pics with each one of the kindergartners like he has every year. http://fourstateshom...t?nxd_id=309422 Another cat was found and reunited with it's owner. 1 year, 3 months after the tornado. http://www.koamtv.co...-with-its-owner This video was just uploaded a few days ago. The last part has cussing. It's interesting to hear the demeanor change from laughing early on to "oh s***" at the end. At one point he talks to someone who is probably his neighbor who says 'i'll believe it when i see it'. You can see power flashes in the distance around this time, and he says 'crap' and notices rotation. A short time later after he goes back inside you can hear the rumbling of the tornado and he sees it. Also, the only thing left of St. John's hospital is the East Tower. Photo by Michelle M Short:

Google Maps has updated their satellite photos. You can still see the faint scar across Joplin but it's not as pronounced as the previous satellite image. You can also see all the rebuilding. The images are a month or two old. Well today was supposed to be the day that St. Johns was to finally be brought down completely. It didn't happen. Despite being banged on for 4 hours by a wrecking ball, the old girl just didn't want to go down without a fight. A small section of the original building still stands with the newer east tower still standing in the background. The Joplin School bonds sold in less than an hour and a half. http://www.joplinglo...ds-sell-quickly Volunteers are working to save all the trees that were planted from the ongoing drought. http://www.ky3.com/n...0,1920759.story A volunteer from Arizona came back... Inspiring: http://azstarnet.com...86a8e141e1.html

Demolition of the St. Johns hospital tower structures has started late today. It'll take a few weeks to take down both the towers. The debris is being used for backfill and to plug up a giant mine on the north side of town.

You get used to it. It becomes the new normal. 20th street is really depressing since it is a wasteland so you avoid that area, lol. Mother nature has taken over most areas and grown back. It's quite shocking to see places where there were pieces of homes still standing last September (before they were bulldozed), and now it's completely grown over as if a home was never there. Seeing all the rebuilding is a positive step as well. Plus, you have to look to the future and what can be. The city hired Wallace-Bajjali as the master developer last week, this week they announced the projects they are looking to fund. They want to fund/build a lot of housing, a performing arts center, a convention center, a miinor league ballpark, a senior housing complex, an education complex, medical office buildings, a government office building and some others I'm forgetting but over $800 million in total projects. Always have to be looking forward