Photo By Mark Haviland | Brian Thompson, 27, and a native of Trenton, Mo., a small town just 250 miles north,...... read more read more
JOPLIN, Mo. -- Brian Thompson knows what he’ll remember about his time helping the city recover from the EF-5 tornado that damaged or destroyed about 8,000 buildings and killed 160 people here May 22.
Dinner plates.
Thompson, a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers park ranger, works in the expedited debris removal area, a federal designation for a swath of destruction that runs from east to west through the southern half of the city and into neighboring Duquesne.
For almost six miles, the remnants of homes, workplaces, cars and personal belongings line the roadways or are scattered across residential and commercial lots. It’s a bleak landscape dotted with broken houses, trees stripped bare and cars crumpled into barely recognizable lumps of metal and fiberglass.
“It's like someone scooped up the middle of Joplin, put it in a blender, turned it on high and dumped it back out," says Barb Sturner, a FEMA public information officer.
Thompson, 27, and a native of Trenton, Mo., a small town just 250 miles north, volunteered to come here and help the city dig out from the mess and get back on its feet. He’s one of 87 Corps employees supervising contractors as they remove an estimated 1.5 million cubic yards of debris from along roadways and private lots.
“Knowing you’re making a difference and helping people is the best part of my job,” Thompson says. “Helping people who, in some cases, have just lost everything they have, is a special feeling.”
Reminders of what’s been lost aren’t hard to find, Thompson says. Dotting the landscape are memorials to those who perished, symbols of faith and signs of a resilient spirit. There are also the personal items that serve as a reminder of life here before the tornado: old records, stuffed animals, torn and tattered school papers, toys, clothes and knick-knacks. Keepsakes and everyday items.
Everyday items such as shattered plates pushed to the curb with other debris.
“It might sound weird, but seeing the same style of dinner plates that I ate off of while growing up really hit me hard,” Thompson says. “It hit me that so many people here are just like my parents. What happened here could have easily happened to my hometown.”
Thompson admits the 12-hour shifts and the record-setting temperatures – 100-plus degrees for his first 21 days here – take a toll but is quick to add that it’s thoughts of his own family and the similarities he sees in the people here that keep him going.
“You’re here to help people,” he says. “That motivates you.”
| Date Taken: | 07.29.2011 |
| Date Posted: | 07.30.2011 17:39 |
| Story ID: | 74559 |
| Location: | JOPLIN, MISSOURI, US |
| Web Views: | 199 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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