As I am sure you are aware that a little more than a week ago a massive storm front hit the Midwest. On Sunday, May 22, while we were in Tulsa visiting Daddy, Joplin, MO was hit with the deadliest tornado ever recorded in U.S. history. This EF5 tornado, with winds in excess of 200 MPH, demolished about 1/3 of the city and as of now more than 130 people have died. The images of this tornado's destruction are overwhelming and saddening.
On Monday, May 23, the girls and I headed back to Lawrence as we had planned. We take a bit of a longer route through KC so that we drive on four lane highways the entire way. As it turns out, we pass Joplin on I-44. From the interstate I could see the destruction to homes, trees and a car dealership. We were in stopped traffic for about 20 minutes so I took a few moments to take it all in and snap a few photos. Truly unbelievable. I didn't want to scare the girls so I let them watch Aladin while I drove and surveyed.
Tuesday and Wednesday also threatened most of the Central Plains and Ozarks area with tornadoes. A band of storms and several tornadoes touched down along southern Nebraska to Texas. Most of Tuesday afternoon and evening, I kept the Weather Channel on to track the storms headed toward us, Tulsa and Hutchinson and several other parts of the states where we have family and friends. I generally do not tune into television programming during the day when the girls are awake, but I did on Tuesday because of the strong possibility of more deadly tornadoes. Gabby saw images on TV from the devastation in Jolpin and live tornadoes in the Oklahoma City area. She had several questions that day and the days following. I tried my best to not scare her with my answers but to reassure her that we were safe and doing the right thing by watching the weather reports on TV.
On Wednesday, Gabby persisted with more questions as her little mind took it all in from the previous day's happenings. Rather than write a check to the Red Cross or the tornado relief efforts, I thought we could use this as a lesson in compassion and humanity and take a trip to Wal-Mart and purchase items that those in charge of helping the people of Joplin had requested. Gabby was so proud of herself and kept telling anyone in the store and our cashier that these items were "for the people who lost all of their stuff in the tornado." Here is a picture of the girls with our donations. Gabby was really happy to help others which warmed my heart greatly.
On the way to Wal-mart, one question that Gabby kept asking is "Why did the tornado take all of the people's stuff?" I said that so many different things were happening with the weather that it created this very big storm that had strong winds that moved their houses and belonging around. She said, "But why?" And I replied, "Mother Nature has been busy the last few days." (We have talked about Mother Nature before so I was eager to know how she would respond.) She stopped for a few minutes and asked "Is Mother Nature a witch?" I assume watching the Wizard of Oz lead to this conclusion. I said, "No, she's not a witch. She brings the sun, flowers and the pretty days, too. The cool of spring and the warm of summer collided and created these big tornadoes." This seemed to be a good enough response at the moment.
On Thursday, we brought our donations to a Red Cross drop off in town. It was humbling to see so many American pulls together to help those in desperate need.
May God Bless Joplin in the coming days, weeks and months.
