Please keep the town of Joplin Missouri in your thoughts, and send good vibes their way.
Yesterday, the town I grew-up in, went to school in, and lived in was destroyed by a F4/F5 tornado. Here is an amazing video of the actual tornado forming:
I was born in Joplin Missouri in 1987, but I originally lived in Carthage, Missouri which is about twelve miles away Joplin, so whenever my family would go out and do something Joplin is where we would go. I grew-up going to the stores, movie theatre, and parks.
I graduated from high school and attended Missouri Southern State University, in Joplin MO and lived in the dorms for three years of that time.
I met Todd in Joplin, and moved into his apartment with him in 2009, and the following autumn we moved into a house, our very own house!
Three months ago we moved to Atlanta and things are going very well, and only getting better.
Yesterday, I had the day off, so we planned a pool party and barbecue with our good friend Kristi. We spent the afternoon and evening swimming, cooking, playing games, and having a blast. When we got home last night though we found out what had happened to my old home. It was unbelievable, Joplin was destroyed and flattened, its a surreal thought. The morning when I left Joplin, everything was the same as it always was; quiet, cool, just the same as I remember it, but now most of the town I knew is gone.
Thankfully I live in Atlanta, because I would have been right in the path of the tornado. I lived a block away from Rangeline (a road that was destroyed in the storm) in a tiny house that would have been blown over like a house of sticks and worked at the Rangeline Wal-Mart (only the front facade is left, the area where I work is ruined). The apartment that Todd and I first lived in together was also completely destroyed.
I would have been at work when the tornado hit, it is a shocking realization that I would have been there if I was still in Joplin, and I might have survived or I might have died. As of now the death toll is as high as 90...
I wish I could be there to help but everyone back home is in my thoughts, and thankfully everyone Todd and I know is safe and accounted for.
Most sincerely,
W.B. Fair
Photos from: Jamie Green, Jonathan Miller, and Associated Press
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