![]() For example, although Main Street Pet Care is in the middle of town, Joplin now appears to end 200 feet from Leavens’ office window. “All areas are up and running.” That includes grooming, boarding and day-care services.īut beneath the appearance of normalcy, effects of the disaster run deep. “We’re extra busy now that we’re open,” Leavens said. Work on his 10,000-square-foot clinic and 5,000 square-feet parking structure isn’t quite done – the roof was lost and water damage was extensive, and the HVAC system destroyed – but the business has been open since July 5. Ben Leavens of Main Street Pet Care also lost a few clients to the tornado, though he has no tally of how many among his 15,000 patients were affected. We lost some clients we had several that passed away.”ĭr. We had to replace bricks on the front,” said Rachel Schwartz, a receptionist at Parkview. “The entire inside was destroyed and the back wall and runs were torn apart, but as far as the structural part, it was okay. Early reports that the clinic would close permanently were erroneous the clinic will re-open in mid-August. Jim Christman’s Parkview Animal Hospital is operating out of a trailer in the clinic’s parking lot. Veterinary clinics are not quite back to life-as-usual, but they’re well on their way.ĭr. Construction noise is now part of the city’s rhythm. The City of Joplin estimates more than half the debris has been removed. Residents are trying to achieve a sense of normality: They celebrated the Fourth of July, and the city’s annual Boomtown Days festival will still take place in August. A trauma treatment center was established to provide mental health services to affected children and families. But today, survivors are rebuilding the city and their spirits. The National Weather Service called the Joplin twister “the deadliest since modern recordkeeping began in 1950.”īuildings, livelihoods and lives were destroyed. The tornado that killed 159 people in the town of 50,000 and injured more than 1,000 was rated EF-5, the top of the scale in ferocity. Louis Cardinals baseball team pitched in. Even professional athletes from the Kansas City Chiefs football team and St. Volunteers did everything from cook to clean up and sort trash, Lissant reported. I have never seen so many people drop all pretense of any prejudice and hold a hand out to other humans in such a compassionate manner.” There was a tech from British Columbia that I worked with at the adopt-a-thon who came to this country just to help. “People from Tuscaloosa (Alabama) came to help after they were hit so hard (by a tornado) there in April. “A guy from Japan came because Springfield has a sister city there and Springfield sent help after the tsunami,” Lissant said. ![]() “People from everywhere were coming to help,” reported Lissant, who is director of member relations for the Veterinary Information Network (VIN), an online community for the profession. Nate Lissant, who traveled a relatively short 75 miles from his home in Springfield. One veterinarian who joined the rush to assist was Dr. Some came from out of state and weren't licensed (in Missouri) so they worked as techs.” “For the first three weeks we had 12 vets from dawn to dusk. “We had volunteer vets come out of the woodwork,” said Karen Aquino, executive director of the Joplin Humane Society. How did they pull it off? With a combination of guts, spirit and outpouring of help from volunteers near and far - factors that have contributed to the overall ongoing restoration of Joplin, residents and other observers report. Each animal had been spayed or neutered, microchipped, vaccinated and tested - dogs for heartworm and cats for feline leukemia and feline immunodeficiency virus. Just one month after the May 22 storm, the Joplin Humane Society held an adopt-a-thon that found homes for 745 pets in a whirlwind two days. Here’s one measure of how the city of Joplin, Mo., picked itself up and started to put itself back together after a tornado of almost inconceivable violence tore through the community:
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