Webb City High School graduate Susan Campbell, a columnist for the Hartford Courant, returned to her home area this week to offer
first-hand reports on the tornado:
I realized as I drove down historic Route 66 that I was reciting -- to myself, which is weird -- the name of the business that once stood on that corner, the sisters who lived in that house. One of our old houses was torn down, and replaced by a modular home. I marked that in my head.
I got all the way out to Carterville Cemetery before I realized what I was doing. I'm making a mental map. One of the most disorienting things about driving through the broken parts of Joplin is losing my way. I know these streets. I know the churches, the strip malls, the restaurants, but everything for nearly a mile-wide stretch is splinters and insulation and rocks. There are no markers, no street signs, nothing but devastation. I was driving down Range Line yesterday and realized with a start I didn't know where I was.
So, without meaning to be ghoulish -- though it really kind of is -- I went to Carterville and Webb City, where I spent my girlhood, and made note of the places that used to be there, the families that have long since gone. The Johnsons, the Helton sisters, Mrs. Green, who used to yell at the Campbell kids. Mr. Swiss, Carl's Market, Dr. Ferguson's, Grandma Marrs.
There is no town that's untouched by this. If there was no physical damage, the psychic damage goes deep. I know people who haven't left their homes since Sunday. I know people for whom today's stiff wind was a problem. The healing will begin. These are tough people, most of them, and it may take a long time, but Lord.
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