Joplin

[Ozark Lee]

I have a job running in Coffeyville, KS and my trip to the cabin in the Ozarks for the weekend took me through Joplin. All I can say is WOW what a sight. I took the route down Business I-44 (Main Street) which I think was more at the eastern edge of the carnage - a mile or so West of the hospital - and there is still largely nothing but rubble and what used to be trees for several blocks. Many of the lots have been cleared of the debris and only a slab or a basement remains, other lots still have significant debris piled up on them.

What is encouraging is that - from the small part I saw - I would guess that 5% to 10% have brand new houses already erected and they appear to be finished and another decent percentage were in various stages of framing.

There are still sign poles and light poles that have metal roofing or siding material wrapped around them.

It has become a cottage industry for people to load up their pickups with anything metal and haul it off to the recyclers. I saw dozens of old pickups stacked 5' above the top of the bed with scrap metal.

What was surprising is that nearly none of the commercial enterprises had done any more than clearing the lot and boarding up the windows. I went by several fast food places like Pizza Hut and Burger King and it appeared that there was no serious effort to get them re-built even though they outwardly looked structurally OK.

...Lee

[FCPEURO]

WOW, that must have been one heck of a sight. no one talks about the tornadoes anymore but we must not forget that they are still in bad shape out there. You would not happen to have any pictures of the town?

[Matty Moo]

I don't think a town ever fully recovers from something like that...just the emotional toll screws people up permanently.

There's a town 15 miles east of us, Dundee. They got nailed by a big one in June 2010 and it's the same deal...areas that still aren't cleaned up, barns still knocked over and houses still standing there without roofs on them or half blown over. We live in an area with HEAVY tornado activity and it's always in the back of your mind during that season. Tornado sirens seem so normal that nobody really does anything when they go off, you just wait and see what's going to happen. I always go outside and look up for rotations, but once things get weird I hit the basement.

It's pretty eerie driving down the road and you see a circular driveway with absolutely nothing anywhere near it.

[jblackburn]

We recently toured some of the damage that happened when a tornado smashed through our area (actually the county I work in) a few months back. While it doesn't look quite as bad as the aftermath, and houses are beginning to be re-built, you can still definitely see where the tornado tore through the mountain.

Though I had no part in this, one of the people I work with just pushed through this CBDG grant to help build several small homes for people that lost theirs from the tornado. We've received a lot of thanks towards the organization from the community for getting this project approved, and they just recently completed one of the houses and got the family moved back in, with three more under construction at the moment.

Many of the other houses in the area needed at the very least completely new roofs; some had to be rebuilt from the first story up.

http://vawatercentralnewsgrouper.wordpr ... ssistance/

Here's some of the footage of the direct aftermath of the tornado - I toured this area before, but lost all of the pictures on my old phone when it died.

[FCPEURO]

My goodness. That is one thing I have not had to deal with in NJ. At least in my area.