Extreme Makeover Home Edition is building 7 homes in Joplin right now in the area worst-hit by the May 22nd tornado(technically, “worst-hit” refers to the entire width of the town in a mile-wide thickness, so that’s rather vague, but oh well). I’ll try to get some photos, but I really don’t know if I’ll be able to get there. I figured I’d share a map showing the area they’re building in. First, here’s a marked-up map(using an old photo, obviously) of the actual project area:

Seven houses in a row. This area is just 6-7 blocks from St. John’s Hospital, which seems to be the face of Joplin since the tornado. Yes, it can be seen from anywhere in the tornado path, for the most part. This map is specifically to show where media parking is, but it’s the only one that shows where the actual houses are. Volunteer parking is at St. John’s. I won’t try to convince them that I’m media(I have a reach of maybe 300 people), so I’ll just park roughly 24 blocks away & take the shuttle bus for spectators, unless I actually have business in that area and a clear shot. It actually is possible I’d have business in that area.

Below is a map from a couple months after the tornado, to give a better idea of the area currently. As of this posting, it looks like July, judging from the amount of debris still in streets & amount of traffic on 20th Street. I was still dodging debris in the street when I finally started driving in that area again in July. Main Street didn’t even get new street lights until a few weeks ago. Scary at night with no lights around.

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So, that’s what’s going on around me. I’m happy that various businesses are back up and running and plenty of houses are going up around here. I’m still missing Backyard Burgers, but I know they’ll start rebuilding soon enough. Plenty of businesses have yet to start construction and there is still a lot of rubble yet to be removed, but we’re getting pretty close to normal again. I was fortunate to have not lost anything from the storm. In fact, power returned to my workplace right before I was scheduled to work the next evening.