\tFirst, they can\u2019t rebuild their town alone. Second, they aren\u2019t alone.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cSometimes, we say we don\u2019t know if God is in the miracle business,\u201d said Mayor Melodee Colbert-Kean.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cWell, look at our city,\u201d she said. \u201cGod is still in the miracle business.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tJoplin is still a city of vacant lots, one year after the most powerful tornado that can be measured cut a swath through the middle third of the city of 50,000, from the southwest city limits to the northeast city limits.<\/p>\n
\tGone in the 30 minutes or so in the late afternoon of May 22, 2011, that it took the slow-moving EF-5 twister \u2014 actually three tornadoes that spun themselves into a single mile-wide monster \u2014 were some 7,500 homes in the poorest part of the town, and some 2,500 commercial businesses that provided thousands of jobs.<\/p>\n
\tMaura Taylor, director of Catholic Charities of Southern Missouri which serves the Diocese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau, said 65 percent of the destroyed homes were rental properties, and nearly half of those were government Section 8 properties for the low income.<\/p>\n
\tBut then, almost as soon as the tornado left, the miracles began.<\/p>\n
\tA regional disaster plan, spearheaded and funded by federal and state government, kicked in, first responders \u2014 police, firefighters, emergency medical technicians \u2014 arrived from as far away as Tulsa, Wichita and Kansas City as fast as their emergency vehicles could take them there.<\/p>\n
\tThen the volunteers came \u2014 from across the entire nation.<\/p>\n
\tAnd they are still coming.<\/p>\n
\tOn June 6, one year and two weeks after the tornado, Mayor Colbert-Kean welcomed 136 more who came by chartered bus from Kansas City for a day of work, some of it backbreaking in the late spring southwest Missouri heat, on a day of service sponsored by Catholic Charities of Kansas City-St. Joseph.<\/p>\n
\tThe Kansas City volunteers re-organized the Catholic Charities warehouse where basic supplies such as food, personal hygiene items, clothing, dishes and tools are still coming in.<\/p>\n
\tThey picked up trash, nails and glass still strewn along acres of empty lots that was once a neighborhood.<\/p>\n
\tThey provided landscaping at Cunningham Park, devastated a year ago, but where the names of each of the 161 people who died on May 22, 2011, have been immortalized on a bronze plaque, and where 161 trees have been planted around the memorial.<\/p>\n
\tAnd with pick axes, shovels and the enthusiasm of youth, they cut through two feet of topsoil, clay and bedrock to prepare a retaining wall around a brand-new home built by \u201cHelp Joplin Rebuild,\u201d an inter-faith consortium spearheaded by Catholic Charities of Southern Missouri that is turning empty lots back into neighborhoods, one home at a time.<\/p>\n
\tThat is the continuing miracle of Joplin, the mayor told the Kansas City volunteers at a hamburger and hot dog barbecue that ended the day of work.<\/p>\n
\t\u00a0\u201cEverybody became a neighbor and helped everybody out,\u201d Colbert-Kean said. \u201cIt will stretch to five to seven more years (before Joplin fully recovers) but we are on our way. And Catholic Charities was here on Day One, and you are still here.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tOn Sunday, May 22, 2011, Catholic Charities of Southern Missouri was a two-person operation \u2014 interim director Kyle Schott and an administrative assistant. And on that day, Schott was on the other side of Missouri, helping the victims of a devastating Mississippi River flood.<\/p>\n
\tThat evening, Schott got a call that Joplin had been devastated. Then he got a call from Mike Halterman, CEO of Catholic Charities of Kansas City-St. Joseph, with a four-word message: \u201cKyle, we\u2019re coming in.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tThe next day, Monday, Halterman assembled his team, who assembled and organized volunteers. On Tuesday morning, they arrived at St. Peter the Apostle Parish in Joplin, the only one of the two Catholic parishes in Joplin left standing.<\/p>\n
\tFor the next five days, the volunteers from Kansas City organized a makeshift relief center in the gymnasium of adjacent McCauley Catholic High School, sorting through relief supplies that were coming, unsolicited, from coast to coast by the truck load.<\/p>\n
\tThe professional case managers from Kansas City began receiving people, many left with just the clothes they were wearing, as they put them in touch with services to get them through the next day, the next week, the next month, the next year.<\/p>\n
\tNo value could be put on that work, said Taylor, who began as Catholic Charities of Southern Missouri\u2019s permanent director on May 13.<\/p>\n
\tAbbie Young, Stacie Young, Maddie Young and Tara McGranaghan, in one day, helped reorganize the Catholic Charities of Southern Missouri warehouse where donations are still arriving for tornado victims and the poor of Joplin.<\/p>\n
\tAnd the money, desperately needed money, poured in from parishes in each of the state\u2019s four Catholic dioceses, from Catholic Charities USA, from federal, state and local disaster relief plans, and from people who simply sent in checks.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cWe had two employees,\u201d Taylor said. \u201cWith the help of Catholic Charities of Kansas City-St. Joseph, St. Louis and Wichita, we were able to respond to needs immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tCatholic Charities of Southern Missouri now has 35 employees, including nine case managers assigned to Joplin to help people get back on their feet.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cMany of them are hard-working people who were living paycheck to paycheck and were left acutely poor,\u201d Taylor said.<\/p>\n
\tOne year later, they are still coming.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cWe have people coming in who haven\u2019t asked for help before,\u201d she said. \u201cThey thought that a year later, things would be better. Well, here it is a year later and now they realize they are not better.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tThe more affluent neighborhoods have already been rebuilt through insurance settlements.<\/p>\n
\tBut the acres and miles of vacant lots were once the homes of people living in rental properties who didn\u2019t carry renter\u2019s insurance, Taylor said. Some vacant lots were once the homes of elderly on small fixed incomes who may have paid off their mortgages, but they let their homeowner\u2019s insurance lapse in order to afford food and medicine.<\/p>\n
\tThose are the people who still need help, if they have not already left Joplin to move in with friends or relatives.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cWe will help them one person at a time,\u201d Taylor said.<\/p>\n
\tOne such person is Don Atteberry. He and his two grown daughters were enjoying their usual Sunday dinner when the weather began to look threatening.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cWe turned on the Weather Channel and they were saying it was going to pass us on the west and go toward Carl Junction,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\tSuddenly, the roar.<\/p>\n
\tAtteberry and his daughters huddled in a solid oak cabinet, clutching hands, and rode out the storm that lifted them off the floor. They escaped with nothing but cuts, scrapes and bruises, some of them suffered as they tunneled through the rubble toward their front door, then outside to check on their neighbors.<\/p>\n
\tDon Atteberry turned 90 years old last month.<\/p>\n
\tHe stood at his vacant lot at the corner of 24th and Pennsylvania streets and watched the Catholic Charities volunteers swing the pick axes and dig with the shovels for the retaining wall on the soon-to-be completed Help Joplin Rebuild house.<\/p>\n
\tHe brought two homemade signs: \u201cThe tornado killed the house that stood here, but not me\u201d and \u201cGod bless and thanks to the volunteers.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tAtteberry carried insurance on the house he had lived in for half a century, but not enough to rebuild at today\u2019s construction prices in excess of $100,000.<\/p>\n
\tBut Atteberry put his insurance settlement into the back, and it will be enough to build the next Help Joplin Rebuild house in the neighborhood for him, and hopefully in time to invite his two grown daughters, one of whom he has lived with since the tornado, for Thanksgiving dinner.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cWithout Catholic Charities\u2019 help, I wouldn\u2019t have gotten it,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m all for it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tGabe Tischler, Catholic Charities of Southern Missouri disaster relief coordinator, and Steve Williams, construction project manager, said the coalition that formed under the banner of Help Rebuild Joplin has already completed six new homes, with more in process, and has done major repairs on another 100 or more.<\/p>\n
\tThey could do more and do it faster if someone would donate a pickup truck. Or three. Or five. Both Williams and Tischler spend a good part of each day shuttling supplies back and forth from site to site and can take from the Catholic Charities warehouse only what they can carry in their personal cars.<\/p>\n
\tDoesn\u2019t have to be a brand-new, fancy pickup truck. In fact, old ugly will work just fine as long as it is in decent running condition and can haul lumber, paint, dry wall and tools.<\/p>\n
\tAnd he still is getting volunteers raring to go. In fact, that is the reason that Help Rebuild Joplin can build a $100,000, three-bedroom, two-bath home for under $40,000.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cWe couldn\u2019t do it without the volunteer help, just couldn\u2019t do it,\u201d Tischler said.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cSince Day Three, we\u2019ve had 23,000 volunteers come to Joplin to work just through Catholic Charities,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\tThrough connections with the broad ecumenical network that sprang up, Tischler said. Help Joplin Rebuild has been able to get supplies such as siding, windows and roofing material donated.<\/p>\n
\tA pricetag can be put on that kind of material. The volunteer human labor is priceless, he said, pointing to the work on the retaining wall that the small army of Kansas City volunteers were preparing by hand.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cI don\u2019t have to spend $700 to rent a backhoe,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\tPresident Barack Obama gave the commencement address to the Joplin High School Class of 2012. Among the 20 Joplin citizens invited to a private reception to meet the president was Gabe Tischler.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cThat shows that somebody, somewhere knew what we were doing,\u201d Tischler said.<\/p>\n
\tCarole and Steve Yagel also knew. They were sharing a rental house with friends near Joplin High School, but the lease and the utility bills which they helped pay were in the name of their friends. When they applied for direct disaster relief funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, they couldn\u2019t prove Joplin residence.<\/p>\n
\tOne year later, they are still coming to Catholic Charities of Southern Missouri for food.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cYou see the movie, \u2018Twister\u2019?\u201d she asked. \u201cBelieve it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tCatholic Charities helped Carole get new glasses that were lost in the tornado, as well as a new set of dentures, also lost.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cNow I can eat right,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\tBut one thing that she found, miraculously she said, was a small white box with a medal inside.<\/p>\n
\tA cradle Catholic, Carole married Steven in a civil ceremony in 1987, then applied for an annulment of Steven\u2019s first marriage under the Pauline Privilege, so they could receive the Sacrament of Matrimony.<\/p>\n
\tIt was approved by the Vatican in 1995. With the notice of the annulment, Pope John Paul II sent her a small silver medallion with his image in a small white box in which Carole also kept her folded birth certificate.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cI had put this on my dresser before the tornado,\u201d Carole said. \u201cThen the storm took our house, then the high school. When we were able to get outside, this was the only thing we could find. Everything else, our clothes, everything, was gone.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tMarchella Claar was another renter who came to Catholic Charities for help. She had graduated, after years of study, with a double bachelor\u2019s degree from Missouri Southern State University in Joplin on May 21, 2011 and hadn\u2019t even begun a job search.<\/p>\n
\tShe, her husband Larry, and her 17-year-old son Brandon were living in a third floor apartment, and she and Brandon had settled in for the evening to watch, of all movies, \u201cIndependence Day\u201d about an alien invasion to destroy the earth while Larry was at work.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cI was looking at the sky and it was green,\u201d Claar said. \u201cThen my husband called and said the sirens were going off and it was headed our way.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tMarchella and Brandon ran to the lowest floor and crouched under a stairwell.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cA big TV box came from somewhere and blocked stuff from falling down the stairwell,\u201d Marchella said. \u201cIt seemed like it took forever, but when the tornado passed, the only thing left standing was that square stairwell.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cWe had to dig ourselves out,\u201d she said. \u201cWe made it to our truck which was destroyed, but we were able to sit inside. I somehow was able to call my husband, and I said, \u2018We made it, but everything is gone.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\tThe Claars were taken in by friends for a week, then they moved to Iowa to live with her family for the rest of the summer.<\/p>\n
\tThey returned to Joplin in August so that Brandon could start and finish his senior year at Joplin High. That month, they were given a FEMA trailer to live in, and they are still living there.<\/p>\n
\tBut not for long.<\/p>\n
\tIn October both she and Larry were able to get six-month contract jobs through Catholic Charities. In April, as her contract expired, Taylor offered Marchella a full-time, permanent position as a disaster support specialist, helping others find help.<\/p>\n
\tThen came the really good news. Habitat for Humanity, which is also doing yeoman\u2019s work rebuilding homes and lives, approved the Claar\u2019s application for the very first home they will own.<\/p>\n
\tAnd on top of that, on June 15, members of the Kansas City Chiefs football team will come to Joplin to break ground on the home and, hopefully, complete construction before the contract on the temporary FEMA trailer expires in November.<\/p>\n
\tMarchella said she is grateful for all the help she has received, including the FEMA trailer. But it won\u2019t be the home her Habitat for Humanity house will become.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cIt\u2019s not a bad place, but it\u2019s not ours,\u201d she said of the trailer. \u201cThis will be ours. Everything is going in the right direction, but we still got a ways to go.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tA tornado survivor herself, Marchella knows what the survivors who still come to Catholic Charities have gone through.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cIt helps me relate to the clients, but it\u2019s hard sometimes,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\tAnd sometimes, like a woman whose tears prompted new tears from Marchella, what is needed at a particular moment is a friend to cry with.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cWe both stood there crying, and then we were fine,\u201d she said. \u201cWe just needed to get it out.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tThe old two-storefront downtown Joplin headquarters of Catholic Charities of Southern Missouri is still coming together.<\/p>\n
\tBut it was Taylor\u2019s idea to decorate it in a special unique way.<\/p>\n
\tAmong the bags and bags of clothing and bedding that came flooding to Catholic Charities from around the nation were a dozen or so hand-stitched, crib sized quilts. Taylor took those quilts and hung them on the walls of the Catholic Charities office in Joplin.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cI wanted something to make this feel like home, and what feels more like home than a quilt?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\tTaylor beamed with pride as she showed off the office. Over here, her case managers work. And over there in a large room, is where she is planning, while still neck deep in disaster relief work, a new Strengthening Families program, open to the entire city.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cYou have to be thinking of what you will be five years from now,\u201d Taylor said.<\/p>\n
\tMayor Colbert-Kean is confident where Joplin will be in five years. Back to where it once was, with the help they were humbled to receive freely but proud enough to accept and appreciate.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cWe\u2019re not going to be known as the Tornado City,\u201d Colbert-Kean said. \u201cWe are going to be known as the city that came back.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tWith years of work left to do, Catholic Charities of Southern Missouri is still in need of cash donations, as well as donations of used, working order work vehicles, as well as both unskilled volunteer labor and skilled labor, including dry wall hangers, electricians and plumbers. Cash donations can be sent to Catholic Charities of Southern Missouri, 601 S. Jefferson St., Springfield, MO 65806. Volunteer labor teams and those with work vehicles to donate can contact Gabe Tischler at the Joplin Donation and Distribution Center, 113 E. 9th St., Joplin, MO 64801; (417) 616-9314 or (417) 499-2920<\/i><\/p>\n
\tPosted with permission from The Catholic Key<\/a>. Official newspaper for the Diocese of Kansas City, Missouri.<\/p>\n