Cage and Brady point to new parks, an art center, a medical school and incoming dental school as indicators of how Joplin has changed. Those involved with the recovery efforts say that by harnessing federal funding and the national spotlight it gained during the early days of the tornado, the city was able to grow. More than 182,000 people volunteered in the town, including building hundreds of homes. In Joplin, rebuilding took place at a rapid pace, with an average of five houses built a week since May 2011, according to city figures. “We said: ‘we’re gonna use this as an opportunity to be better than we were before’.” ‘They didn’t just wait for Fema’ “After a disaster that’s the government’s focus: we’re going to get you back to where you were,” Brady said. Residents had a vision: a community with more parks, trails and sidewalks, which the city incorporated into its recovery plan. Committees such as a citizen advisory team, chaired by Cage, were formed to seek input. “Our city works well with our county, the city works well with the hospitals.” Officials and residents were quick to organize, helping displaced residents secure housing, supplies and mental health support.Īnother key to recovery was soliciting feedback about what people wanted the new Joplin to look like. “We have a spirit in our community that we are going to work together,” she said. And Joplin had an advantage, Brady said – it was a town built on strong connections.Ī sign on a fence near the site where Joplin high school once stood. Residents mobilized from the earliest moments, bringing injured people to safety and cleaning streets. The scale of the catastrophe was so staggering, federal officials warned the city it should expect to lose at least 25% of its population.īut the city insisted on a message of unrelenting hope and optimism for its future. Calls about domestic violence grew in the first year. Eighteen people died by suicide after the tornado, said Stephanie Brady, the executive director of the Community Clinic of Southwest Missouri, who co-chaired the long-term recovery team. The storm affected everyone in the city of 50,000 in some way, and took a toll on mental health. The recovery ahead was monumental: Joplin had lost 4,000 homes, more than 500 businesses and critical infrastructure such as segments of the sewage system. It had destroyed a third of the city, including a hospital and several schools, and displaced more than 9,000 residents. The storm had violently torn through Joplin, killing people seeking refuge wherever they could find it, such as a Pizza Hut manager who shepherded people into the restaurant’s freezer and a family scrambling for safety inside a Home Depot. Photograph: Ed Zurga/REUTERS A citizen-led effort that solicited feedbackīy the time it dissipated, the tornado was among the deadliest in US history. The tornado was one of the deadliest in US history. “People want to return to normal,” she said, “but at the same time the disaster very often presents a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for a community to build back better.” Jane Cage, a small business owner who became a leader of Joplin’s rebuilding efforts, says communities face a choice between rebuilding as quickly as possible, often the same way things were before, or taking the time to plan and build in a more resilient way. Whether it be towns leveled by wildfires in the west, or by tornadoes like the ones that hit Kentucky last month, catastrophe can also present an opportunity to improve.

Joplin has managed to achieve an often elusive post-disaster goal: not just restoring what was there before, but building a more resilient community.Īs the climate crisis intensifies natural disasters, residents here say Joplin offers crucial lessons in how cities can recover and how the US can better prepare. A locally led recovery effort has created a thriving city with a larger population, new educational institutions, more businesses and thousands of houses that are better able to withstand extreme weather. “I was looking at our church and didn’t recognize it.”īut more than a decade later, Joplin’s transformation has been a positive one. “We lost all our landmarks,” said Ryan Stanley, who was born in Joplin and serves as its mayor.

Joplin missouri tornado 2011