h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

First I need to thank everyone for their concern about my safety. Joplin is right next door to Little DooDah. The two towns run together in several places on the north and east boundries. It's hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. We share some utilities, but not all. We share cable service, electricity, cell towers, water. Joplin is quite a bit larger, so most of the residents of LDD work in Joplin. The Joplin Airport that Z mentioned is less than 2 miles from my house. I lived in Joplin for 7 years. I have friends and family there.

The tornado was massive. It hit the south central side of town. LDD is on the north side of town. The storm missed us by about 5 miles. The reason I was out of touch is because my telephone and Internet are both with our local cable company, which is located on the southern edge of the tornado's path. The library also has Internet through the cable company. But I had land line telephones at the library and was able to get a message onto Facebook from there. 80 cell towers were down, so communication was a major problem. I was able to call Canada and tell Nick I was ok, but couldn't call local numbers. In order to restore service they had to go through all that debris and install new poles and fiber.

I don't know exactly how to describe to you how gut-wrenching this experience has been for all of us. It's almost unimaginable. It took less than a minute. One minute the city was intact and the next a wide swath of it was either rubble or just gone. As of this morning, the death total stands at 136. About 160 people are still missing. 1200 were injured, with about 750 seriously enough to be hospitalized. 300 businesses are gone. 8000 structures were destroyed or damaged. We keep hearing conflicting figures, but to the best of my knowledge, the ones I just gave are accurate. The dollar damage is estimated at $3 billion.

I'm fine; Mother is fine; the BCs, who live much closer to the damage are fine. One of my staff lost a family member. I know dozens of people who lost their homes. The girl who grew up next door to the library lost her husband. He died shielding her with his body. Syn's niece lost her home but thankfully was at her dad's when the storm hit. I don't know how many of the dead I'll know because they still haven't released a lot of the names. The obituaries are just beginning to hit the newspaper.

Amazingly, the cleanup and even some rebuilding are underway. The school district is already woking. Wal-Mart is scheduled to start rebuilding as soon as they are given the all clear. The businesses that are left, the churches, neighboring communities, everyone is working together to get the survivors through this. We have crews from all over the region, electric companies, police departments, search and rescue crews. There has been an amazing outpouring of help.

And life goes on. That's all we can do, just go forward.

Thanks for letting us know you're okay.

Amazing how much damage can be done in so short a time. Thoughts and prayers, y'all. Let us know what we can do to help.

Hypatia, I am so glad to hear from you. I was so worried about you when I saw the news and scurried to find out exactly where you were. Hoo Too friends seem to be having a rough time of it with earthquakes and tornadoes.

It was doubly hard to think about you as we had actually met and chatted. I do hope you will be ok, as the trauma often hits later as the enormity of it hits. Still I know you are a resilient person with the 'get on with it' attitude, but you know where I am if you feel in need of a chat.

I am impressed at how quickly the clean up and rebuilding is getting started. We are somewhat slower in getting sorted in this country when things happen, perhaps because such things are rare and take us by surprise. A few years ago a small tornado hit a district not too far from me, damaging trees and many houses and shops. Some of the occupiers are still waiting for repairs!!!!! It was pure luck that I wasn't in the path of it that day, I should have been!

Anyway, thanks for logging in to let us know. Take care, keep in touch,



Websailor

I'm glad you are ok Hyp!

Hypatia, I am very glad to see that you're OK, even if the world around you is in a bit of a mess. Take care...

(OK, so I've taken a break from the site while I deal with other stuff, but I'm entitled to be inconsistent.)

Phew. Good to know you're okay.

TRiG.

morning dear, glad your ok

Hypatia, thanks for the info. I hadn't realised HOW close you where.

I hope everything settles down soon and that normal service, if such can exist after an event like that, resumes quickly.

Take care and keep in touch, as best you can.

and

MMF

Hurrah for Presidential aliveness!

Do we have enough in the budget for a motorcade around the most populated areas? Just to make sure everybody knows.

Most populated areas of Hootoo... just in case anyone gets the wrong end of that particular stick.

I was really glad when I heard you were well, Hyp.

What a horrible thing to happen, though (the tornado, that is).

Hi Hypatia. Sorry to hear about the destruction of your town and all those deaths. Glad you're OK.

Glad that we heard you were OK, even if incommunicado, and of course also to see you back online

Noticed from the press that we have had one President visiting the other

It was really very good of President Obama to come. As you might imagine, his detractors have found fault with it. Some complained that he didn't come sooner. Some complained that he came at all, questioning his motives. In this part of the country people will find a way to bash any Democrat in office. It's all juvenile and mean-spirited.

My greatest frustration was having the Internet down at the library. We needed our public access labs open for people who had lost communication. Thankfully, we're up again and can be of more help from here on in. Everyone wants to help. We feel this need to do something - anything. It's hard to know what to do sometimes. We've set up 'charging stations' for people to recharge cell phones, have waived fees for faxes, non-resident computer use, and increased the range of our WiFi. We have let people pay for fines and charges with non-preishable food for years, so we always have food available for the food pantries. Tomorrow I plan to make our meeting space and lap-top lab available to non-resident businesses and organizations without charge. We have books boxed up to deliver to shelters. I don't know what else to do but will likely think of something.

morning Pres

Is it right, from what I heard, that Fox accused the president of "chugging 40s", a reference to his visit to the Guinness brewery where he sipped on a pint of the black stuff, while people's lives were being torn apart in Joplin?

Fox News. Can't live with 'em, too expensive to fire them into the sun.

Sounds to me like you are doing a lot Hyp. It must be impossible to relax though.

It must have been difficult for President Obama to be over here in the UK when all that was happening, but I am quite sure he could do as much from here as if he was in the US, and he certainly didn't waste much time getting there when he flew back!

There's no pleasing some people

Websailor

Hyp, I didn't realize that LD-D was *that* close to Joplin -- I was thinking it was about 40 miles! I'm so glad you're okay!

Websailor, I don't think any of us who escaped the storm think we're doing enough to help. It's a psychological thing. A mixture of relief, gratitude and a totally unreasonable sense of guilt that we're ok while so many others had their lives turned upside down. And it wasn't just another storm. This area has been hit many, many times doing varying amounts of damage. This storm was a monster. The extent of the damage is mind boggling.

The original reports said the tornado was a half mile wide and six miles long. A CNN crew went out and actually measured the debris field. It is actually twelve miles long.

One piece of good news to come out of all this is that people finally have accepted that our two major hospitals are way too close together. If the storm had been just one more block to the south it would have taken out both hospitals in one fell swoop. So hopefully St. John's will rebuild someplace else.

SC, very few folks have even heard of WC so I'm not surprised you didn't know exactly where we are. When I was a kid the two towns were clearly separate. There were still pastures and wooded areas between us. Now all of that is gone and replaced by businesses and housing developments. Then about 10 years ago, WC annexed a small unincorporated community in between, extending our city limits on the south side clear to Joplin.

Joplin only has a population of around 50,000, but it is the largest city between Springfield, MO and Tulsa. It is the retail and medical hub of the entire region. Each day around 300,000 people are in the city.