Less than a minute.
That was the time it took for a tornado to rip through MU sophomores Megan McAllister and Jordan Herr’s hometown of Joplin and leave more than 160 deaths and miles of destruction in its path.
The twister took McAllister’s house and everything she owned. Herr was more fortunate — her family’s home was still intact and able to shelter McAllister’s family as well as her own.
In the aftermath of the storm, McAllister and Herr were faced with challenging questions. Should they return to MU? How should they begin to rebuild their lives back home? What was next for the city of Joplin?
**The night of May 22**
The two women and their friends were sitting in a closed corridor in the Northpark Mall, located on Seventh and Rangeline streets, part of which was later swept away by the tornado. Some familiar with the Midwest brushed it off as just another nasty spring storm, but something about this one was going to be different.
“People would go outside and look in the window so they could see what was happening and they’d come inside and would say, ‘This is going to be bad,’” Herr said.
And it was. While sitting in the mall’s corridor, Herr and McAllister remember hearing a long roll of thunder. They would later find out it was the freight train-like sound of a tornado passing overheard.
The mall was left mostly undamaged, but when McAllister and Herr left its shelter, a different story emerged. The panic of not knowing where either woman’s family was rushed to their heads as they tried to make their way down Rangeline, which the tornado had destroyed. On their way down the street, McAllister noticed the place where her father’s family dental business once stood.
“People were trying to come up to our window asking us for help, but we didn’t know where our families were, so we had to find some way home,” McAllister said.
After a drive home that took the women two hours instead of 15 minutes, they finally reached McAllister’s home. Or what was left of it.
“We pulled up to where my house was supposed to be and there was just nothing, just nothing,” McAllister said. “Seeing my house gone, I thought I was the only one alive.”
It was only a matter of 10 minutes, McAllister said, between the time she and Herr arrived at the rubble that used to be her house and when she finally saw her family running at her down the street. Her sister and brother, flanked by her two dogs, ran to hug her and to reassure her that her parents were safe and helping their neighbors nearby out of the rubble.
“It was probably 10 minutes, but it seemed like a lifetime that I didn’t know where they were,” McAllister said. “Literally, you don’t think about it, but when I went to the mall that day, that was all that I had. I didn’t have anything.”
McAllister’s family then stayed with the Herr’s for nine days, passing the time waiting out more severe weather, searching through the rubble and volunteering to help around town by bringing food and drink to people rebuilding and sorting through what was left of their homes. They stayed with McAllister’s grandparents for three weeks afterward.
“All of our memories in that house were gone,” McAllister said, who had lived there since she was three years old. The tornado reached EF-5 status right as it passed over her house, she said.
Sorting through the rubble, the women found McAllister’s cat, still alive, and small belongings left over that they normally wouldn’t have been excited about, such as a baby doll.
But it was all they had left. As for clothes, those that were found were so ingrained with rubble it took dozens of washes to make them close to wearable again, and even then, many had to be tossed away. The time after the tornado was spent salvaging anything possible, from a few old pictures left behind to knobs that used to be on doors or dressers.
For Herr and McAllister, the stretch of time when they didn’t know if their families were alive affected them the most. The same question kept popping into their heads: What do you say to your best friend when her family is gone?
Luckily for both women and their families and relatives, that wasn’t the case.
Some of their friends, such as Will Norton, a 2011 graduate of Joplin High School, were not as lucky. Norton was driving home with his family from graduation when he was sucked from his car up into the tornado while spouting Bible verses and song lyrics, McAllister said. His father knew Norton was going to a better place, but was holding onto his son so tightly that his biceps tore and he had to go through months of recovery, McAllister and Herr said.
“God could not have picked a better person to take,” McAllister said about Norton. “He was one of those people everyone loved.”
Herr and McAllister asked themselves, “But why him?”
People had been searching for him relentlessly while updating people over Facebook about his potential whereabouts, until he was found in a pond near McAllister’s house. Although they only have their memories with Norton, McAllister and Herr said when they have a rough day or just need a laugh, they turn to watching some of Norton’s comical YouTube videos. Their memories with Norton and his personality stay with them.
McAllister now looks at that pond a different way, as both women do for many parts of the city.
“It’s becoming more homey,” she said.
**The decision to return to MU**
Herr was always going to go back. But if it had been up to McAllister, she probably wouldn’t have returned to MU and Delta Delta Delta, the sorority house she calls home.
“I probably would’ve stayed home and would’ve regretted it,” she said. But McAllister wasn’t given a choice. Her parents told her she would be going back. “But I’m so glad my parents made me come back because I love it here.”
And Delta Delta Delta loved McAllister at MU, too. MU’s chapter and chapters from all over the country sent McAllister’s family money, messages, letters and other donations.
“(My sorority) sent me checks of lots of lots of money just to help me,” McAllister said. “And then I got messages and letters and donations from people, literally, Tri-Delts from California to Florida.”
The MU Bookstore also sent McAllister a loaner computer and MU gear for everyone in her family. The dean wrote a personal letter to McAllister and her family, and her academic counselor also called to check up on her.
“I was just overwhelmed from Mizzou and from Tri-Delt,” she said. “It was just awesome.”
McAllister and Herr said there were six families affected in Joplin with students at MU. Three or four of them lost their homes, they said.
Although both women are happy to be back in Columbia, the transition was not the smoothest.
“I know the first couple days I was here I just cried and cried and cried because I just missed my family so much,” McAllister said. “There was so much going on with my family, like decisions. I just felt like I was missing out and kind of like I abandoned them because they had to stay there and pick up the pieces and I just got to back to school and act like nothing ever happened.”
Both women now visit home during the school year much more often than they did before the storm.
“You just feel like you’re missing out on so many things that you wish you could be a part of,” Herr said, especially in reference to the high school’s first football game, a symbol the town was recovering from its sadness and loss.
**Starting over in Joplin**
Some residents of Joplin, Herr and McAllister said, are still stuck on May 22 and the storm changed them for the worse. But most of the people they know have been changed for the better by the storm.
“God gives them the strength to move on with their lives,” McAllister said.
Joplin residents have been moving on, and quickly. “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” built seven houses in Joplin last week, and the Tulsa and Joplin Habitat for Humanity organizations have been working on building 10 new homes for families. A memorial park was made to commemorate those whose lives were taken by the storm and the volunteers helping to piece the city back together.
“I didn’t want people to feel sorry for me,” McAllister said. “We didn’t want to be looked at as the victims. We didn’t want to be the family who lost everything, but we were.”
Although Herr’s house went untouched, it still feels strange for her to have to ask directions to her best friend’s rental house. McAllister felt as though she lost her entire home, she said, until her mother pointed this out: “We didn’t lose our home, because our home is where our family is, but we did lose our house.”
Although it was a hard realization to come to, both women said the saying, “everything happens for a reason” couldn’t be truer.
“It’s hard to look at the bigger picture of life,” McAllister said. “Once you go through something like that, I think it really does help you to see that a little better.”
Parts of Joplin remain silent as a chilly fall breeze sweeps through them, some supplies and partially destroyed homes and buildings still sitting as they were four months ago, damage still appearing fresh.
But positive thoughts, hope, laughter and grins can be seen on the faces of every volunteer in the city, as they work to rebuild the place they all call home: Joplin, Missouri.