Day 3

It was immediately obvious. We arrived Sunday evening and the moment we started north on Main Street you could tell something was different. We see dozens of vacant lots with a few new businesses and home interspersed. Empty asphalt parking lots surrounded by weedy lots. It's been three years and the debris has been cleaned up. Buildings have been razed and many have been replaced. But there are still a lot missing. And there are very few mature trees. The are few tall stumps remaining and some younger trees. But all of the large hardwoods that are typical throughout Southern Missouri are gone. It looks like a prairie or forest that has been clear cut. The swath is a couple miles wide from south to north. The tornado moved from west to east. It was that big.

Monday morning we learned of the tornado and saw a first hand video from a storm chaser who had been following the storm that fateful Sunday afternoon. This man who follows storms for a living was in tears after seeing the devastation that this had caused.  This storm demolished 4000 homes through the heart of a city.  It was on the ground for 32 minutes! To be in a tornado for 32 seconds would seem like an eternity. 32 minutes probably felt like the end of the world.

Our worksite is the same. New homes are popping up, but there are still quite a few abandoned lots. Lots that have a concrete stairway from the curb leading to a weedy field.  A weedy field where a house and lives once were.

I think of what I do on a typical Sunday afternoon in May. It's usually a bike ride, yard work, or I'm watching a ball game. What would I have been doing that day?

Mike