Joplin

About a week ago Bit and I took a whirlwind trip down to her home town of Joplin. It was my first time back since the devastating tornado hit. The destruction was mind boggling. What was more baffling was how everyone who had seen it before was amazed by how much better it looked. Taking a 3/4 mile wide strip of a city away is indescribable. On a good note, the people have rallied and are recovering as best as possible. Getting over any tragedy requires forging on but not forgetting. We arrived Tuesday afternoon, visited with a high school friend of Bit and her children. The next morning I got up early and volunteered for 5 hours before the heat shut down operations. I pulled nails out of salvaged lumber. They were using the lumber to build prefab storage shelters so that people who were able to salvage things from their homes would having something to put their belongings in while in limbo.

One of the things that I couldn't quite get over was the trees. The big trees that were not up rooted were stripped of all of their bark and limbs. the only thing that remained were little stumps where large limbs had once been. All of these trees were covered in leaves like a chia pet or something out of a Shel Silverstein book. I was told that this was their last ditch effort at staying alive, but the Arborist say they will die.