Associated Press
Ashley Stephens holds a ferret she rescued from the home of a missing woman while helping a friend collect belongings Monday, May 23, 2011, in Joplin, Mo. A large tornado moved through much of the city Sunday, damaging a hospital and hundreds of homes and businesses and killing at least 142 people.
Associated Press
Rescue workers in lime-green jackets search for bodies and survivors inside St. John's hospital in Joplin, Mo., Monday, May 23, 2011. The hospital was damaged by a tornado that destroyed nearly 30 percent of the city on Sunday afternoon.
The images on TV, facebook, twitter and newspapers are just a startling reminder of that day. On May 22nd, 2011, an EF-5 tornado with winds of 200+ MPH swept through the town of Joplin, Missouri. Luckily enough, it spared the downtown part of the city. But many homes, schools, lives and St. John's Hospital were not so lucky.
I've been through Joplin, Missouri before. I drove down there with some friends of the family during a Thanksgiving visit down to Texas last November. Like most cities here in Missouri, it's a very nice town. I remember driving past St. John's Hospital. You wouldn't think something like this would happen. When you see the destruction and damage on TV, it reminds you how precious life is.
142 people lost their lives. 42 people are missing. Many of those who were killed were next-of-kin. Kids were barely teenagers, from ages 1-7 years old. A teenage boy, Will Norton, had just graduated from high school. He was driving home when the tornado hit the city. He was also found dead among the wreckage.
The town recently welcomed Governor Jay Nixon, Senator Claire McCaskill and President Barak Obama to survey the damage of the city:
"In his remarks before some 2,000 Joplin residents on the campus of Missouri Southern State University, the president mentioned two "everyday heroes" -- Dean Wells, a manager at a Home Depot, and Christopher Lucas, a manager at a Pizza Hut.Both men died saving others: Wells, shepherding people to safety until he was crushed by a collapsing wall, and Lucas, who left the safety of a freezer shielding more than a dozen people to search for a rope to keep the door shut.
"You see, there are heroes all around us, all the time," the president said. "They pass us in the aisle wearing an orange apron. They come to our table at a restaurant and ask us what we'd like to order.It's this knowledge -- the knowledge that we are inclined to love one another, that we're inclined to do good, to be good -- that causes us to take heart," Obama said."
This is the kind of hope that these people need. But please take time to donate anything like food, water and toiletries. The residents of Joplin need your help more than ever right now. We know that they can rebuild. But right now, they need your help. We know that it would mean a lot to those who have gone through so much heart ache.
