Joplin remembers deadly tornado, one year later
JOPLIN, Mo. — Malachi Murdock doesn’t remember the massive tornado that struck Joplin a year ago Tuesday, killing 161 people and nearly killing him.
The 17-year-old was onstage after a performance at the Stained Glass Theater when the twister shredded the building. Three of those inside were killed. Murdock was hit in the jaw by debris and injured so badly his parents initially didn’t recognize him at a hospital hours later.
Murdock, now a college freshman, plans to devote his life to helping others as a counselor and youth minister — a decision borne from the suffering he saw after the May 22, 2011, tornado, which was the nation’s deadliest in six decades. He and Gov. Jay Nixon were among those at a sunrise service Tuesday at Freeman Hospital to honor the hospital and emergency workers who sprang into action that night — the first in a day of solemn events to marking the anniversary.
“I’ve been blessed with a loss of memory of this event,” he said. “If I remembered, I’d probably be going through the same trauma a lot of these people are.”
Freeman was overrun with Joplin’s bloodied and battered that night because the city’s other hospital, St. John’s Regional Medical Center, was destroyed — one of thousands of Joplin buildings damaged or laid to ruin. St. John’s has been operating out of temporary facilities while construction continues at its new permanent location, where it will reopen under the name Mercy Hospital Joplin.
In the shadow of St. John’s hulking remains, on land dedicated by the Sisters of Mercy Health System, a new elementary school will be built to replace two destroyed by the twister. At a groundbreaking ceremony for the new Erving Elementary School, principal Debbie Fort said it’s been a “roller-coaster type year,” with extreme highs and lows.
“It’s important that we take a moment to reflect and remember,” she said. “But it’s a new chapter in our lives. This really signifies our future, the future of Joplin.”
Similar ceremonies were planned for later Tuesday for two other new schools, including the rebuilt Joplin High School, whose graduating seniors were treated to a commencement speech Monday by President Barack Obama.
A 4-mile unity walk through some of the city’s hardest hit neighborhoods was to begin at 2 p.m. in neighboring Duquesne, where more than one-fourth of the community’s 750 homes were destroyed and nine people died. The Joplin portion of the walk begins past a Wal-Mart where 200 people survived the storm by huddling together in employee break rooms, bathrooms and other designated safe zones. Three people, though, were killed inside that store.
The walk will conclude with a moment of silence at Cunningham Park at 5:41 p.m., the precise time when the EF-5 tornado packing 200 mph winds hit Joplin. The city park, which is across the street from the hulking remains of the St. John’s hospital, has since been rebuilt.
While many of Tuesday’s events will reflect upon the past year, community leaders are also looking ahead toward what is bound to be a long recovery effort.
In January, elected officials and other members of a 45-person recovery committee endorsed a long-term recovery plan that calls for the creation of four new business districts that would allow residents to live and shop nearby and a unified approach to rebuilding that ensures new construction meets certain design standards.
In March, the city hired Wallace Bajjali Development Partners, of Sugar Land, Texas, as its “master developer” to oversee the rebuilding plan.
The day’s events are also expected to attract some of the more than 130,000 volunteers who descended on southwest Missouri from across the country to help out. That group includes a contingent of bicyclists who left New York City’s Central Park nearly three weeks ago on a Cycle for Joplin fundraising ride organized by a group of former Joplin residents known as the Joplin Expats.