by Keith Bassham
My wife and I were having a meal in a burrito shop in western Pennsylvania Sunday evening, May 22, when we were jolted by news of the Joplin tornado on the television just minutes after it happened. Shari’s brother lives in west Joplin, and she was relieved to hear his voice when she phoned moments later. His house had a small amount of damage, he said, but he knew there was devastation more toward the center of town.
Later, in our hotel room, we sat numb as the images and eyewitness reports poured from our television and computer screens. The next few days, wherever we drove and stopped, people noticed our Missouri license plates and asked us about the tornado. It would be at least a couple of weeks before we returned home to see the tragedy for ourselves, but we had felt acutely the storm’s sting.
The damage was staggering, as anything caused by something called an EF5 multiple-vortex tornado should be, but the first reports of death, injuries, and missing persons were even more so. The death toll continued to climb into June as some of those who were severely injured succumbed to those wounds and infection. As the “missing” checked in (first reports indicated more than 1,000 unaccounted for), and as rescue workers did their work, we began to get an accurate picture of the situation. The Joplin tornado is considered the seventh-deadliest in U.S. history (at 157), and the deadliest since 1947.
Hundreds of homes and businesses, community structures, and even parts of the city infrastructure were simply gone. The buildings of two independent Baptist churches, Faith Baptist Church, Bruce Allen, pastor, and Southside Baptist Church, Phil Owens, pastor, were destroyed. Help and relief for these and others came from across the country. A number of BBFI churches from the area, led by the Missouri Baptist Bible Fellowship, were joined by others to do what they could to give some initial relief and comfort. The Missouri BBF continues to receive aid for the Joplin effort, and can be contacted through the Fellowship’s website, www.mobbf.org. Faith Baptist Church and Southside Baptist Church may be contacted directly through their respective websites, www.southsideofjoplin.com and www.faithbaptistjoplin.com.