After these events took place, C&W began a donation drive requesting in-kind donations from our properties to be delivered to Joplin in an effort to help in any way we can. Over the course of 2 months, we accumulated many boxes from C&W properties all over the country and had them shipped out to Branson, MO where we have 3 properties.
On August 24th, I loaded these boxes and drove them out to Joplin so that I could see first hand what we were donating toward. When I first got off of the interstate in Joplin, I looked around and did not see any devastation. I began to wonder secretly if it was possible that the town had already rebuilt. I thought after seeing the pictures after the tornado, that it would have been impossible, but I couldn't fine any damage on the building around me. As I drove closer to the city center, I noticed a few signs that had been twisted and damaged and thought maybe I was getting closer to where the tornado hit. But nothing, even those thoughts prepared me for the damage that I happened upon just a few short blocks later. The landscape literally went from brick buildings with no damage to complete and utter destruction. I crossed one street where things were still standing to a mile long strip of pure debris. The destruction looked about a mile long and 2-3 miles deep from where I was driving. I knew then that my description of the devastation would not be enough to explain how bad it was so I pulled over to a side street and tried to take pictures. The pictures sill will not show how awful the scene was, but it will at least provide some type of visual that my memories and words cannot.
I continued driving to get our boxes to a donation center. When I arrived at the Salvation Army in downtown, it was very busy. There were workers unloading entire moving vans of donations and relief items. Individuals were pulling up in their SUVs also dropping off items to help. In all, there were probably a dozen workers just unloading trucks and sorting the items as needed. It was wonderful to see that people are still actively responding to this effort. But after seeing what exactly they were working to replace and rebuild, I realized that more items and more volunteers are still needed greatly.
I want to take a moment and truly thank all of those individuals and C&W properties that donated items. I hope you know how beneficial those items will be to families that are still without homes and in need of shelter and basic essentials. Please know that C&W cannot continue these efforts without your support and we want to thank you for continually sacrificing of yourselves to help those in need.
In order to help you understand a little better what your items and donations will be used for, I have posted some pictures below. Thank you again to everyone for all of your selfless actions and donations. You are all truly appreciated.
The following pictures are what used to be a residential areas with hundreds of homes. Now, there is only the base of a house left, and in many cases, just rubble.
Inside what is left of the foundation of this home is all of the household items that were blown around pushed all into one room. It is now just a jumbled mess of unusable items that used to be someone's home.
The power lines all had to be replaced as they were ripped apart and shredded into splinters by the tornado.
As you can see here, there is still a great deal of debris and ruble from the homes and buildings that they have been unable to clean up.
This is one of the few homes that is in the process of being rebuilt. There were a few here and there, but out of the hundreds of homes that were lost, this is a rare sight.
These were the concrete steps to someone's house that no longer exists.
This house was just one block from all of the destruction in the previous pictures. It is still standing, with significant damage; but it shows how unpredictable a tornado can be. I took every house to the right of this block without mercy.
In the distance there you can see a crew of men working construction on a home. This was being overseen by the National Guard. But again, the rebuilding that this town is in need of cannot be completed over night. This will take quite a while.
This is a close up of the debris on the ground. Nowhere in the destruction zone is there a spot of ground that isn't completely covered in this type of debris. The dirt is littered with pieces of homes and buildings. It is truly a tragic sight.
I hope that these images have helped you understand how devastating this event was for the town of Joplin, MO. It is truly unfortunate that events like this take place, but despite not knowing any of those that lost homes in Joplin, I know that they will appreciate all of the items that were given to them by those that donated at C&W. Every little bit counts and sometimes that's all that we can do.
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