The Joplin Tornado: Laura’s story

07/27/2011 17:11

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It’s been just over two months since the devastating EF5-rated tornado ripped a wide path through Joplin, and in that short amount of time, it’s amazing how much has been cleaned up. Nearly everyday I express my thankfulness that none of our employees lost their lives, even though four of them completely lost their homes. I asked one of them, Laura, to share with me that experience.

“I had just taken a quick nap after church, and then later it was time for me to go pick up Yainer at the high school graduation,” began Laura as she recounted that Sunday night of May 22. Yainer, 17, is in show choir and they performed at Missouri Southern State University where Joplin High School’s graduation was taking place on that hot and humid evening.

When Laura arrived to get her son, Yainer’s friend hopped in the van too, and that’s when Laura’s sister called her to see if Laura had heard Joplin was under a tornado warning. Laura didn’t know about it, but the darkening sky emphasized the weather warning her sister was sharing. Laura called home and told her other six children to clear out the closet in case they need to get in there should the sirens sound. That was the standing plan. They didn’t do it.

Her other son, Jacobo, 19, called freaking out. He was at a friend’s apartment over by McClelland not far from St. John’s Hospital. He had seen the tornado. He screamed for his mom and siblings to hurry and find safety. Then his phone went dead.

As Laura drove closer to her home located near 20^th and Highview, they could see the huge, black storm approaching. It was taking away light and bringing darkness. They saw debris circling and she called her kids at home and yelled at them to get into the closet. Laura parked the car and she, Yainer and his friend ran through a storm of hard hail into the house and there she found her children unmoved, unprepared, and in the living room. She gave them the look and the voice intonation with which they knew she meant business and they jumped into the closet without the comfort of having moved stuff out. They placed blankets and mats over their heads, but only six of them could fit into the closet. Yainer grabbed a mattress box-springs from the nearby bunk-beds and he, Laura, and Yainer’s friend crouched down underneath it, holding it, at the closet door. Then the noise of the tornado hit. They prayed, but none of them could hear one another, despite the fact they were next to one another.

Then it was at this time something supernatural happened. “I don’t know how to explain it,” struggled Laura as she was retelling it. “I don’t now what it was, but it felt like a white screen went around us.” She really struggled with this description. “But, it was then I knew we would be OK. I just knew from that point on, we would all be OK.”

Yainer began screaming that they would all die, and Laura brought reassurance. Then everyone started yelling, “I love you!” to one another.

“After it was all over, we just stayed there for a while, afraid it might come again.” They then tried to push back the box springs off of them with difficulty. The roof was gone, and they were completely exposed to the cold rain and hail. The wall on the north side of the hose was gone; nothing there but the bunk beds, and the other walls were flopped out without the roof to hold them perpendicular. The very living room that her kids were in, when Laura came running into the house only minutes ago, was now sliced by a huge tree.

Laura said it was very difficult for them to get out. She said the top side of the box springs that was exposed had debris and broken boards and other material stuck into it. She said if it weren’t for the box springs, “We would have been killed.” She choked out the word “killed,” as if it were a foreign word. They were all totally wet, dirty, and covered in soaked insulation.

A couple of her children vocalized their trauma and new plight of homlessness with fear and crying. Laura said it was right at that time that warm joy dripped over her and she just started laughing and exclaiming, “We’re alive, we’re alive! It doesn’t matter now. We are alive!” After that, they managed with a lot of difficulty to extract themselves from the destroyed house. Laura said when they got out and looked around—it was just an unimaginable disaster.

But then she thought of Jacobo. Not a word from him since the phone went dead, and a chill of fear went over her deeper than the cold ice of the hail. All her children were accounted for except Jacobo, and for the next hours, her focus was on reaching him. Her cell phone was working, but service was totally gone, and the battery life was minimal.

They were the first survivors of their neighborhood out. They went next door and started calling for their neighbors Priscilla and Chase. At first there was no response to their repeated calls, but finally they heard them. They were trapped in their bathroom, but fine. They want to the next neighbor, Jason’s house, but Laura was afraid of what they would see, “In a way, I was scared to keep looking. His house was completely gone.”

“We were like zombies standing by the naked trees.” Then Mrs. Hammer, an elderly neighbor, popped out. She had some sticks imbedded in her hand. They found some people in a pickup driving by and asked if they would take Mrs. Hammer to find some care; they did. That’s when Yainer pleaded with his mom to let him and his friend begin searching and helping, “I have to do this, Mom.”

Laura said they started heading towards Main Street but then a lady in a trench coat met them and advised her not to go that way with the children. She told her there were mangled bodies and mangled cars. So they headed back east towards Rangeline and walked to the shopping plaza where Cici’s Pizza and Joanne’s Fabrics were located. Someone had pulled out some fabric bolts and began wrapping the kids up to get some warmth.

Laura’s phone was about dead so she borrowed people’s phones trying to call any of Jacobo’s friends to try and located him. Phone service was zilch, but she was able to make contact through Face Book. Someone had assured her they saw Jacobo with Yainer. But then Yainer appeared without Jacobo, and Yainer hadn’t seen him.

Chase, the neighbor’s son spotted a car-charger in a destroyed car in the parking lot. The impossible became possible. That car-charger fit her phone and the car battery also still worked. She was able to charge her phone and work on trying to reach Jacobo—all on Face Book, and she made contact with her sister in Rogers, Arkansas.

When her sister finally was able to reach Laura, it took hours of convincing to get Laura and the kids to Laura’s sister’s house in Rogers. When they later came back to Joplin, the area was blocked off with search and rescue taking place. Laura’s sister ignored the barricade completely focused on the mission of finding Jacobo, and she just drove right into the restricted area. Thankfully, they found him, alive and well. He showed his mom where he and five other guys went for safety. Laura is still amazed that all six of them were able to get into a cubby hole under some stairs into a space that was about a meter square. She later found out that Jacobo was on a similar quest to find his mom and siblings and when he finally reached their home, he freaked out. A neighbor was able to convince him that they all walked away safely. He couldn’t imagine how they could have survived in the house after he saw it. The reunion of the family was sweet and tender, sealed in sobs, memorialized in hard hugs, something forever remembered.

Melissa, a fellow employee who is also a single mom, took Laura and her family in for several weeks. Laura was finally able to rent a modular home. Finding homes is a major challenge—lots of people have had to move to other nearby towns in order to find housing.

Laura is also helping locate, document, and provide funds to patients who lost their homes from the Joplin Tornado Relief Fund that ACCESS Family Care started. “It has helped me a lot. I realize how blessed I am when I’m helping patients who not only lost their homes, but some lost their family members and even children.”

“I probably shouldn’t do this, but I just can’t help it,” added Laura. Almost everyday after work she goes to where her house used to be. There is nothing there. No houses, no trees, no grass, just some foundations and slabs where houses once were for blocks and blocks. For Laura, it’s a connection and a memory for what was once constant, stable, and routine. It’s a time of reflection on the grace given her and her family. It was her home, much like the nest to which a mother bird returns to feed and protect her innocent young.