McHenry County Blog

This post is a continuation of my sister Ellen’s email about what happened as a result of the tornado that devastated much of Joplin.

St. John's Hospital after a partial clean-up from the tornado.

The hospital that was destroyed has mobile units set up and is back in business. They have room for about 35 patients and have started doing surgeries.

The hospital just reported that they were keeping all of their employees and continuing to pay them.

[For an excellent article on what happened at St. John's, read this Sunday Kansas City Star article.]

Our schools sustained over 150 million dollars damage.

Fortunately our school district has insurance that has a $5000 deductible per event.

A fence how surrounds the destroyed Joplin High School.

Next year 11th and 12th grades will go to school in a former Venture store in the mall.Home Depot has a large tent up and is selling outdoor stuff such as building supplies.

How long is the right amount time to not do your regular routine?

Denny didn’t golf for almost two weeks. The country club canceled their 100 year celebration.

Joplin postponed our annual “Boomtown Days” (I know, classy name, huh?).

Our tennis facility is not having their annual professional tennis tournament.

Since the tornado, we have received more love from others than you could imagine.

Several of the big schools in MO, have sent their football teams to help. The KC Royals (a few of the retired ones) served us lunch (along with our grandkids) at Sam’s Club the other day.

Denny said the Cardinals stopped by the boys free baseball clinic today.

Three Louisiana chefs brought seafood and a fiddler. The chefs called themselves "The Taste Buds." "Three Chefs - One Mission" was also on their tee shirts.

Last night we went to a park where three chefs from New Orleans had come here to cook for us. They even brought a fiddle player and band on stage for our entertainment.

The Oklahoma casino so close to Joplin that it has Joplin water and sewer.

The Casino had a benefit concert for Joplin last weekend.

Some of the kids on the south end of town had their baseball equipment destroyed. Some organization donated 250 bats, helmets, shoes and gloves to the kids.

One boy, in the grandkid’s game tonight, broke his glove, and son-in-law Brandon, gave him a new one.

A young girl is knitting elephants for children in Joplin.

I saw in the news today that Brad and Angelina are donating $500,000 to Joplin. Pitt grew up in Springfield, MO which is about an hour away.

Home Depot, Walmart, and our local roofing company, TAMCO, are a few companies that have each donated 1 million dollars. I wonder where all of this money is going.

The governor has been here several times.

Two more days of stories in this series.

What follows is the first part of a long note from my sister, who lives in Joplin. Mercifully, her family lives in Leawood, about a quarter of a mile south of the Interstate on which I saw a photo of overturned trucks. I have written previously about my niece’s brother-in-law’s experience in the AT&T Store across the main shopping street (Rangeline). The store was demolished and one of his co-workers was killed by the tornado.

If you are interested in what the eyes of a child saw during the tornado, my sister tells of a four-year old who saw “butterfly people.” You’ll have to hang in until the final installment, though, because that’s where she put it.

Hi All,

I have been thinking a lot about what we have been going through lately and I know you have been concerned about us. You don’t know how much that means to us.

During the 1965 tornado in Crystal Lake, I was in the Methodist Church being confirmed.

A friend of mine did not show up, so we went to her house afterwards. Their garage had blown into the house across the street. Their house had shifted slightly, but enough that they had to totally rebuild. I think 12 people died that day.

On May 22, Denny & I had taken our 10 year old granddaughter, Keaton, golfing in preparation for junior golf at the country club.

Tornado damage to the strip mall where Orange Leaf Yogurt is located in Joplin.

On our way home, she wanted to try out the new yogurt place, so of course, we stopped there.

We knew a storm was on the way, but we were not overly concerned. We went across town on 20th street.

Little did we know that 45 minutes later that street would never look the same.

Also several stores in the same strip mall as the yogurt shop were demolished. The yogurt shop has reopened.

The tornado alarm sounded right after we got back into the car.

Daughter Lissa was meeting us at our house to help with our youngest daughter Kelly’s wedding invites.

Then son-in-law Brandon joined us with grandsons, Fielding & Hobbs and their cousins, Maggie and Carson. They had been at a ball field practicing.

We were all in our basement watching TV about the storm.

Maggie gets very nervous during storms and ended up throwing up on our carpet. (It’s old and not a big deal.)

Then our electricity went out, and we think that’s probably when the tornado hit Joplin.

At that point, I was running up and down the stairs, looking for radios and batteries. (I’m good to go now.)

When we started to hear about damage, I began occupying the kids with stories about how I sunk my dad’s motorboat when I was a kid.

Then Denny would walk by and whisper, “Home Depot is gone.”

On the Joplin High School sign, the "J" has been replaced by an a duct taped "H" and"IN" with an "E." Nearby tree trunks have been carved into eagles, the team mascot.

A few minutes later, he would whisper, “The high school is gone.”

After the rain stopped, Denny took the kids to a neighbor’s yard, where the water rushes through a ditch. The kids like to play there after storms and they came home all wet.

Lissa was able to post on Facebook that we had not been in the tornado’s path and we were safe.

[And I was snapping photos off the TV and emailing them to Lissa.]

The AT&T Store in Joplin.

Brandon became very concerned about his brother, David, who was working at an AT&T cell phone store across from Walmart, which was also destroyed.

He was about ready to go look for him, when he heard that David was OK. It had taken him an hour and a half to get out from the rubble. One co-worker died that day.

More installments for the next five days.

The sign in front of the demolished Joplin High School was altered after the tornado.

All that was left of the letters in “Joplin” were the “O” and the “P.”

Someone duct taped an “H” in front of those two letters and an “E” after them.

Now it spells “HOPE.”

The sign used to read "JOPLIN HIGH SCHOOL." Now it says, "HOPE HIGH SCHOOL."

While attending the 11 o’clock contemporary service at the First United Methodist Church of Crystal Lake Sunday, I saw this tee shirt and knew it would make a good “Message of the Day” for the day after Barack Obama is sworn in.

It says,

HOPE

It has nothing to do with Obama, however.

The wearer’s son attends Hope College in Michigan.

While attending the 11 o’clock contemporary service at the First United Methodist Church of Crystal Lake Sunday, I saw this tee shirt and knew it would make a good “Message of the Day” for the day after Barack Obama is sworn in.

It says,

HOPE

It has nothing to do with Obama, however.

The wearer’s son attends Hope College in Michigan.