Devastation

My sister's life was changed forever Sunday night. She lives in Joplin, Missouri and they lost their house in the tornado. It was almost a mile long, and their house was in it's path. The only thing that is left is the front facade, the master bedroom (not the bath) and the connecting study. The upstairs (where my nieces bedrooms are) is pretty much no longer there. Basically they lost everything, including both their cars.

It hit without a lot of warning. She said it started to storm and then the sirens went off, but then they stopped. They all went down to the basement to turn on the news to see what was going on. The weatherman said that he wasn't quite sure if it was a tornado or just a thunderstorm (I'm guessing now because of its size). All of a sudden they see one of their biggest trees rip out of the ground and hurl itself at one of the windows of their house (their basement has windows and a set of french doors that lead out to the backyard along one side). Immediately after that the electricity went off. They ran to the safe room, and within seconds of my sister shutting the door, the tornado hit and ripped the house apart. Had they waited thirty seconds later, they would have been dead. Thank goodness they had a safe room! They had to dig their way out. It started storming again so they went across the street to a neighbor's basement for a while. She sent out texts and prayed that someone would receive them. They did, and they sent someone to come and rescue them, but Catherine, John and the girls had to walk 7 miles to even get to the vehicle because of the roads. Their neighborhood was destroyed.

As it turns out, a man who John works with is on vacation with his family through the weekend, so they said John and Catherine could stay at their house and use their car. Friends have brought over toiletries and other donations, and Catherine and John are just so humbled and blessed by everyone's generosity.

Catherine and John went back to the house Monday morning to see if anything was salvageable and they were able to get two pick up trucks full of stuff, but that is it. Most of what is left is water damaged. They are still trying to figure out what they are going to do. Over 30% of the town was leveled, and I'm not sure if you have seen images of the devastation but it is horrific. Joplin is by no means a wealthy town, and I don't know how most of them are going to rebuild their lives.

I worry about my oldest niece, Sophia. She is almost 7 and is pretty traumatized, as you can imagine. She has no more stuff, her room vanished. I can't imagine how scared she must have been in that safe room, and how awful for her to see complete devastation every where she looked. Emmie is only 2.5, so she won't remember. But Sophia will.

My sister's baby is doing fine, kicking and moving up a storm, so that is good. She herself is extremely shaken up, and it is hard for her to get out of her head that her children (and herself) almost died.

I've seen footage of damage from natural disasters, but it has never truly hit me how awful it must be for the people who have lost their homes, possessions, and loved ones. Until now. Having my sister involved in such a horrible incident, and thankfully survived, has rocked me to my core and left me sick to my stomach. When you know someone who is directly affected by it, everything changes. I just want to see Emmie and Sophia and give them a big hug and tell them everything will be okay.

Pictures, momentos, jewelry, favorite dolls, furniture, china, family silver, your daughters' baby books, clothes...gone. Think about what is in your house right now. What if it all went away? Some of it will be easily replaced, but some things are irreplaceable.

The most important thing is that they walked away physically unharmed. The mental/emotional scars will remain for a long time. There are so many people in Joplin who do not have the funds to completely start over from scratch. If you can donate, please do so. Even if you just donate blood, the hospitals need that too. I believe you can text Red Cross to 90999 and it will donate $10 to the Red Cross. I heard that on the weather channel, but you might want to double check it. You can also go the the American Red Cross website and donate there, just make sure to check that you want it to go to disaster relief fund.

Just remember that life can change in an instant. Make sure you are truly living and loving the life you lead every day. Please pray for the people of Joplin.