Posted on the 8 year anniversary of the Joplin Tornado
May 22nd, 2011 seems like an eternity ago, even in my world in which time lurches forward quite quickly sometimes. It was a Sunday. I remember getting out of evening church and seeing ominous storms bearing down on our little town, a town that knows storms having been whacked by an F-3 tornado eight years prior to that faithful day. I, being an Applegate living in the Ozarks, turned on the KTTS weather team to see where the storms were and how long I had to traverse the 10 minutes home before the storm hit. The clouds were oddly unsettling.
Later after we got home we discovered that the unthinkable happened: a major city (Joplin) took a direct hit from an F-5 tornado. I had helped with cleanups a couple times before (Stockton and Hurricane Katrina) and knew the ropes. They would need tens of thousands of hands to begin to fix what was broken. I called the school who employed me at the time and requested some time off to help. They were already mobilizing a group of volunteers as was my church.
I arrived at Joplin ground zero as quickly as I could with a friend and we went to the local university where the local emergency management had set up a volunteer coordination center. We were dispersed to the Samaritan’s Purse center at a church a few blocks north of the devastation to be screened to see what tools and skills we had brought with us. I was fortunate to be able to join tens of thousands of volunteers in one of the largest mass cleanup operations in memory, cleaning up after the costliest tornado in American history.
I can’t find my cache of pictures of the events that unfolded the next two weeks, but will eventually add them to this post. Here are a few stock pictures that reminded me best of the total devastation:
Here is a link that graphically shows the before and after like none other: Video
Tornadoes and dementia have quite a bit in common too, sadly enough. Here are just a few ways that one reminds me of the other:
- As I walked through the ground zero of the Joplin tornado, in a scene similar to the middle picture above, I remember not having a frame of reference to mentally cling onto. The Stockton tornado was devastating, but “only” destroyed a couple streets (compared to Joplin’s hundreds and hundreds of houses and buildings destroyed). I am NOT downplaying the significance of any tornado for everyone involved. The Stockton tornado actually destroyed the building that I was in the process of making my first business, delaying that process by months. Joplin was just so destitute that life-long residents could get lost. There were no street markers to cling onto, few if any landmarks to point to, just utter confusion. THAT is the whirlwinded dementia mind and why anxiety and desperation run high in their community. Familiarity is scarce and lost-ness is always present. It must be like going down a ladder and never knowing if the next step is made of paper or metal. Uncertainty everywhere.
- Walking through the main west-east path of the devastation, it was easy to see that nobody and nothing was spared. Sure there were some structures partially standing. The hospital had a hollow skeleton of the building, its 300 pound parking slabs thrown like boomerangs by winds exceeding 200 mph. Similarly, dementia hits all people. No race, gender, age, sexual orientation, hair color, socioeconomic level are spared. If conditions are right, we get the disease. Period.
- The sick feeling of loss as you survey the damage is brutal, but it needs to be experienced by everyone so that they can help when their loved one has the problem. The more tools you bring to the site, the more you can be useful in helping, whether it is in an Alzheimer’s ward or a tornado site.
- Amazingly some will try to take advantage of these two groups. Within a day of the tornado, looters, shady roofers, criminals and their ilk were also loading up to make a killing off the unfortunate victims. Same with dementia patients. There are obviously lists of these wonderful people that circulate on the dark web to be targets of scams and the like. A compromised mind, fighting to remain independent, will make mistakes that can cost them their life savings over a single phone call or visit. There is a special place in hell for such scoundrels that would harm a dementia patient in this way.
- People of all types are available and are needed in helping deal with these situations. Skilled labor can safely do things that well-meaning, differently-skilled people cannot. Gather a huge team…the more the merrier. Divide out tasks. Call on experts that are proven and have stood the test of time. Don’t trust your cousin Eddie who “knows roofing” to do your plumbing…but do seek his help evaluating roofers.
- Guard and document your memories for your sake and your posterity. I helped dig out another family near the terribly beat up water tower just behind Wal-Mart on the east side of town. I was excited to find a bunch of pictures in their back yard, but none turned out to be theirs. The good news is that a local Baptist church became a repository for these 35,000+ pictures. Every effort has been made to reunite pictures with owners. I wish I could help dementia patients find lost mind pictures, but I cannot. However, as long as we have the mind to do so, we must document and store our own memories. If you have physical pictures, write their story on the back like mom used to. Date them too. If you are storing pictures online, be sure they are stored on a safe, large company’s cloud storage (Google Drive, One Drive, iDrive, etc…). BE SURE YOU DOCUMENT PASSWORDS AND GIVE THEM TO FAMILY. A safe is only helpful if someone has the combination!
- Heed warnings. When there is a tornado watch, spend a couple of minutes thinking through your plan. (If you don’t have a disaster plan, here is a good starting place) Similarly, if you are experiencing memory loss, difficulty processing tasks, confusion, problems writing, etc… contact your doctor. These may be signs of dementia and the faster you diagnose, the more you can do to prepare yourself and your family. Don’t wait until the dementia funnel is heading down the street, act now!
- There was one brick house I remember on Indiana street appeared much less damaged as I excitedly walked toward it. Sure the roof was partially gone and the windows were broken, but the house stood…until I got closer and realized it was lifted up and turned about 5 feet and gently sat back down. It would also have to be razed by the crews like the rest. As you walk through the memory unit, it is obvious that some suffered a direct hit while others were “spared”the worse…up to that point. Mom was under a tornado watch for years before the warning…she was diagnosed with a mild cognitive impairment and “a mild dementia” even before the Joplin tornado happened. We really didn’t plan or think it through much at the time. We worked within the cute forgetfulness that she was experiencing and just kind of moved on…(Note: The analogy breaks down a bit here because all diagnoses are actually warnings…some just take longer to manifest itself than others. All you can hope for is the weatherman/doctor made a mistake in prediction). If we knew then what we knew now, we would have done so much more for her.
- The actual dementia journey is also like a tornado. It often jumps from place-to-place, changing and growing and seemingly shrinking. It hits the “library” of your memory, lifts up and does nothing for a bit, then hits the “gymnasium” of your eye-hand coordination then quickly veers to strike the “mobile home park” of your involuntary processes. Some areas are untouched until it gets around to it. While both are not “living things”, both sure act like it sometimes…perhaps like a very bad criminal. Many witness dementia, many experience it…and all need help.
So, as we reflect on the Joplin tornado today, pray for the many people still struggling to recover. Also pray for those who have grown tired or apathetic to storms and the storms of life and are already ignoring the warning clouds in the horizon. Take shelter when the time is right and always be prepared one way or another so you can lend a helping hand should the disaster miss you.
#EndALZ
#JoplinStrong #Joplin8YearsLater
#JoplinTornado
Update: Mom had another decent day yesterday. No falls. She is sleeping more and more these days, a minor cause for concern. We shall see…
Note: Remember, if the word is bold, I put in a link. Most of the links here are Joplin tornado footage.