Here is a link to our coverage of the tornado that tore through Joplin Missouri just one year ago.

Joplin Missouri

NOAA photo of tornado damage to St. John's Mercy Hospital in Joplin

The heart of Joplin Missouri was, in many respects, St. John’s Mercy Hospital. The city’s residents were born there, healed there and often spent their final days there. On May 22, 2011, an F5 tornado tore its way through downtown Joplin and left the hospital in ruins. That ended an era but yesterday a new era was begun with the groundbreaking ceremony for a new Mercy Hospital Joplin.

NOAA photo of damage to St. John's Mercy Hospital in Joplin after the tornado.

The entire St. John’s campus will be leveled as the work begins on a new hospital on donated land at the intersection of I44 and Main Street. A farewell service was held in Joplin on Sunday for the old hospital and a groundbreaking ceremony for the new one.

St. John’s Mercy sits over abandoned lead mines that date to the mid 1800′s. Engineers were uncertain if a controlled demolition would be safe so the site will be cleared using conventional methods. During the six weeks of demolition, as much of the existing structure as possible will be salvaged. The buildings will be stripped of wiring and pipes that will go to the scrap yard. The concrete and asphalt will be ground up and used for fill on the site.

Science will also be served during the demolition. Some parts of the building will be sent to various labs for study of the effects of the tornado on the building and its components.

The hospital has donated about 12 acres of the old site to the Joplin schools. An elementary school will be built there to replace two schools destroyed by the tornado.

At the new site, an innovative project is rescuing about 400 trees from the bulldozers. The site was scoured by certified arborists for the best saplings. They were tagged and have been transplanted to a local nursery where they will be cared for. In 2014, in preparation for the opening of the new Mercy Hospital Joplin, they will be replanted as part of the final landscaping. The trees selected are the ones best suited for Joplin’s climate and soil.

The FEMA blog describes the recovery efforts in Joplin.

• 1.2 million cubic yards of debris removed
• 3,600 building permits issued
• 167 temporary classrooms and 67 temporary safe rooms
• 337 families in temporary housing
• 50 percent of the homes destroyed are being rebuilt
• 90 percent of the businesses damaged have reopened

The National Weather Service has released a report titled Joplin, Missouri, Tornado – May 22, 2011.

The tornado was rated EF-5 on the Enhanced-Fujita Scale, with its maximum winds estimated at more than 200 mph. The path of the entire tornado was 22.1 miles long and was up to 1 mile in width. The EF-4/EF-5 damage path was roughly 6 miles long from near Schifferdecker Avenue along the western portions of Joplin to near Interstate 44 east of Joplin, and generally ½ to ¾ of a mile wide along the path. NOAA map.

A crane lifts community storm shelters into place at Duquesne Elementary School at Duenweg, Mo., July 15. Each shelter weighs more than 77,000 pounds and has a capacity to hold 34 people. U.S. Army photo/Tom Black

Tornadoes don’t get any stronger than the one that struck Joplin May 22.

A rare EF-5 storm, with winds exceeding 200 miles per hour, it churned for six miles through Joplin’s heart; killing 159 people, injuring 1,000 more, and destroying as much as a third of the city.

It was the deadliest tornado since modern record keeping began in 1950, according to the National Weather Service.

Seven weeks after the disaster, the devastation is still clear. But so is the progress of recovery. More than two-thirds of the estimated 1.87 million cubic yards of debris have been cleared – an amount larger than New York’s Central Park – and rebuilding has begun.

Under the National Response Framework, the guidelines that govern the federal government’s response to a disaster, the Federal Emergency Management Agency assigns different missions to the federal agencies best equipped to carry them out. After the Joplin tornado, FEMA assigned the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers three missions: remove tornado debris from streets and home lots, build temporary replacements for critical public facilities like fire stations and schools, and build the sites for temporary housing communities to shelter more than 600 families whose homes were destroyed. Corps’ urban search and rescue staff also helped in the first days after the storm.

It came at a time when the Corps was also responding to a deadly spate of tornadoes in Alabama and flood fighting on America’s two largest river systems – with hurricane season still to come. Yet more than 300 Corps staff from around the country have traveled to Joplin to help with the recovery mission.

The Corps’ Kansas City District quickly set up a field office in Joplin, led by the district’s commander, Col. Anthony Hofmann. An Army Reserve officer and Texas businessman, Col. Daniel Patton, then volunteered to command the ongoing recovery operation.

In its first eight weeks, the Corps awarded more than $160 million in contracts – more than $150 million of it to local small businesses – for debris removal and construction work, built two temporary fire stations and started construction on two temporary housing sites and facilities for all eight public schools the tornado destroyed. All temporary school facilities are on schedule to open before school starts in Aug. 17. Families are expected to begin moving into the temporary communities by the end of July.

Heather Wright, a park ranger at the Corps’ Stanislaus River Parks in California, said she came to Joplin with only helping in mind.

“It’s so hard to do anything really impactful as an individual. But to join forces with others in the Corps, it helps me see that something really significant is being accomplished for people who are so desperately in need,” she said. “I wanted to serve the core need of the people here – to get help get them back on their feet.”

Lynn Jefferies, quality assurance representative, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, talks with a contractor while supervising debris clearing from a home that was destroyed after an EF-5 tornado struck Joplin, Mo., May 22. The debris removal mission includes clearing the right of way (10 feet from the curb) and right of entry homes, which the property owner or the city has given the Corps the right to go onto the property to clear debris. The Corps is responsible for clearing more than 1,400 properties. U.S. Army photo/Andrew Stamer

Debris removal is ongoing. As of July 19, more than 1.2 million of the estimated 1.87 million cubic yards of debris from homes and vegetation has been cleared. The Corps also continues to oversee the construction of temporary schools and mobile home sites. The mission is expected to continue into the fall.

“The Army Corps of Engineers is our hero,” said Dr. Debra Fort, principal, Irving Elementary School, which was destroyed by the tornado.

The Corps began its temporary public facilities mission to replace Irving and other schools, by using existing school campuses throughout the area – some in use and others that were vacant, such as the Washington campus that Irving schoolchildren will begin to attend classes at this fall.

These facilities consist of modular units, tent structures and storm shelters. Inside the modular facilities are classrooms, kitchens, labs and restrooms. This also includes all electrical and cables needed for today’s educational environment. Concrete is in place for gymnasium floors for those schools that don’t currently have such facilities.

“Irving Elementary is a family and one of our greatest concerns was that we would be split in different directions. We were relieved to learn we could remain as a family at Washington Education Center by bringing in modulars,” Fort said, who lives a few miles north of Joplin in Webb City, Mo., and has been the principal at Irving for 13 years.

“We are amazed at how quickly the modulars have been put in place. My teachers love them,” Fort said. “There is an excitement among the Irving families as we look toward the future. The Corps has given us hope and provided a reassurance to us that we can continue to educate our students at a high level.”

Fort has even quelled concerns of other principals whose schools were affected by letting them tour her campus and see for themselves the quality and workmanship that have gone into the facilities. Irving is 65 percent complete, and progress is made every day on all eight schools.

“The long-term mission of FEMA, the city of Joplin and the Corps is to leave the city in a condition that they can build upon after the Corps is gone,” Patton said. “We want to help create a vision for the citizens of Joplin that their community is going to be better and stronger in the end.”

DVIDS
Story by Chris Gray
(U.S. Army Corps of Engineers public affairs specialists Sara Goodeyon and Andrew Stamer also contributed to this report.)

Patrick Trier, Army Corps of Engineers, supervises debris removal in Joplin, Mo. after the May 22 tornado. Photo by Nancy K. Lane-Missouri National Guard

The streets have been cleared. The debris are being cleaned up. The losses have been counted. Two weeks after an EF5 tornado ripped through the heart of their city, the people of Joplin, Missouri look to the future.

Debris removal begins in Joplin, Mo. after the May 22 tornado. Photo by Nancy K. Lane-Missouri National Guard

141 people are reported to have died as a result of the tornado. 100 remain in the Red Cross shelter at Missouri Southern University. 32 Missouri State Police officers remain in the city assisting the Jasper County Sheriff and the Joplin police.

Missouri Gas Energy reports that it continues to cap natural gas lines in the remain 16 grids of the original 40. Empire Electric reports that every customer who can be restored, has been. They have an additional 7,000 plus outages that cannot be repaired at this time.

Up to date information on the Joplin tornado can be found at:

• City of Joplin Website
• Jasper County Website
• Missouri State Emergency Management Agency situation reports
• Federal Emergency Management Agency situation reports
• State of Missouri response website

Staff Sgt. Neville Shiwdin looks over his family's home in Joplin, Mo. May 23 after it's destruction by a tornado the night before. Photo by Cpl. David Rogers

Staff Sgt. Neville Shiwdin struggled to hold closed the door to the closet in which he, his wife and kids took shelter inside his home as a tornado ripped through Joplin, Mo. May 22.

It was supposed to be a typical Sunday evening dinner. As a busy recruiter for Recruiting Substation Joplin, Recruiting Station Kansas City, Shiwdin always used Sunday night as a family night to eat dinner with his wife and kids. The table was set. But on the radio, they heard the storm was coming. Shiwdin helped his kids empty the closet on the bottom floor in the center of the house.

“No sooner than I shut the door, the windows went and all hell broke loose.” Shiwdin said.

Just as he shut the door, he heard the windows shatter and it was like a vacuum sucked all the air out. The storm ripped a hole in the second floor ceiling above them. He heard the sounds of wood cracking as trees outside were ripped from the ground.

“I was holding on to that door for dear life,” he said.

He’s not sure how long they were in there, he lost track of time. After the turbulence was over, he scavenged for water and blankets throughout his home. It was still standing. The hole in the roof and the shattered windows allowed a lot of debris and water to fill the home, but it hadn’t collapsed. And dinner still stood undisturbed on the table.

“I’m not a very religious man but there had to be something protecting me,” Shiwdin said. “Because when I stepped outside and looked at the rest of the neighborhood, that’s all I could think about. And then I set out to do what Marines do; help out wherever I could.”

The first thing he heard was a lady screaming outside and a couple of explosions from gas lines. The woman went to a store and left her kids alone at home when the tornado struck. She was lost. She couldn’t find her house anymore. The streets were unrecognizable. The piles of rubble on every block looked the same. Shiwdin knew her street was a couple of blocks away. But when they got there, the house was gone.

“This lady was hysterical,” Shiwdin said. “She was trying to jump in there and start clawing at… there was just nothing there. We had to hold her back. There was nothing we could do.”

He continued to move through his neighborhood trying to help people. He heard a child screaming for help from another decimated house. He and many of his neighbors who he had never met before began pulling the child out of the rubble. The boy complained of pain in his leg, then they saw the bone sticking out of the flesh of his knee. They stopped. They realized they had to be more careful. An ambulance showed up. It was full, but the child had priority. The ambulance removed another victim to make room for him.

Shiwdin was worried about the many elderly he knew lived in his neighborhood. He found out one man next door was having a heart attack, but the man’s family car was trapped under a tree. Shiwdin had a van that would still run. He kicked out what was left of the shattered windows and gave them the vehicle. He found his other SUV in bad condition but with a running engine and used it to take more people to a triage center a couple of blocks away.

Fifteen blocks away, Staff Sgt. Kenneth Thorson, a fellow recruiter at the RSS, received a text from Shiwdin that his house was severely damaged. Thorson’s family didn’t take shelter as their home wasn’t disturbed by the storm. He tried to call back but Shiwdin wasn’t answering. The cellular network wasn’t transmitting calls very well. So, Thorson and his wife got in their Jeep and took off to find Shiwdin and his family.

“He’s my brother,” Thorson said. “I went out there to get him. It was horrible. There were people everywhere. People that needed help but I couldn’t stop because I wanted to make sure (Shiwdin) and his family were taken care of. There were bodies on the side of the road. There were people screaming and yelling and walking down the street with broken arms and broken legs.”

Thorson finally arrived at Shiwdin’s home.

“He was looking out the window,” Thorson said. “We kind of laughed about it for a second. I don’t know, it was kind of one of those weird moments.”

They quickly packed up the Jeep and Shiwdin’s SUV and left. They heard another tornado might be on the way, but the trip was taking its toll on Thorson’s Jeep. Not long after they started the trip back to Thorson’s home, the debris they were driving over had shredded one of his tires. They stopped and changed it but two other tires were punctured and quickly losing air. They managed to make it to Thorson’s home before the tires went completely flat.

The next day, the Marines of the RSS recovered anything vital from Shiwdin’s home and began helping others in their community. They went to several triage centers including the one at Missouri Southern State University. They directed traffic and organized supplies. Other Marines from Recruiting Station Kansas City arrived and helped patch the roof on another Marine recruiter’s home.

Shiwdin received calls from Marines across the country. One of his former units is sending him a care package. He’s also looking at renting a home in Thorson’s neighborhood for his family. He’s continues without fear that the support of his fellow Marines will help his family recover.

United States Marine Corps
By Cpl. David Rogers , 9th Marine Corps District