It's been almost 5 months since the tornado ripped through Joplin, less than 10 miles from our house. Almost every day we drive through part of the devastation on our way to church, Wal-Mart, or the kids' school. Things are progressing, but there's still a long way to go. Our usual Wal-Mart will be open soon, as will Aldi. Walgreens and Chik-fil-a have both been open for over a month. Some commercial properties look as if they still haven't been touched. It is still very eerie to drive down Rangeline at night, what was once lit so well people could drive without lights and not realize the lights weren't on. It is so heart wrenching to look where thousands of homes and hundreds of businesses once stood. And to see St. John's hospital from Rangeline, something I never thought would be possible. My youngest was born at St. Johns's two weeks before the tornado, and to hear the stories from St. John's is incredible. Many people lost their lives and went to meet their maker, but I am in awe of how things could have been so much worse!! Our tornado warnings are usually after dark, often 10 pm or later, so for this one to happen at 5:41 is unusual. Graduation for Joplin High School happened that day, but the ceremony was held at Missouri Southern instead of the high school, which was destroyed. The tornado hit on a Sunday evening, as graduation parties started and churches were preparing for evening services. Had this tornado hit at the "normal" time for warnings, many people would have been in bed and not watching the weather. Many schools and daycares were in the path. Had this been a Monday, parents would have been driving from work to get pick up their children, and that is hard to think about what could have been...
All that being said, we were "unaffected." Well, that's not entirely true. We physically still had our home, vehicles, etc, and had no repairs to make. We didn't have any funerals to attend of family or friends.
But, it has taken a toll on our kids (and us too.) My 4 year old son came home from preschool with a dot-to-dot and it said "I used to be a square, now I am a __________." C's said "a tornado on a house. Driving through Joplin, the kids always point out the damage and are sad every time. Today on our way to school, we saw some pretty amazing cloud to cloud and cloud to ground lightening, and K's first words were "I hope there's no tornado today!" She is six.
A friend of mine had posted on facebook a devotional scripture from that day. Jeremiah 17:17 "Do not be a terror to me; you are my refuge in the day of disaster." Wow!!
