Carl Junction has made full recovery

May 03, 2008 07:26 pm

— By Joe Hadsall
jhadsall@joplinglobe.com
CARL JUNCTION, Mo. — Police operate out of a new police station. A new junior high school should be ready for students in August. And the city will soon begin constructing a new community building, which will house city hall and a senior center.
Carl Junction is better now than it was before May 4, 2003. So say some community leaders.
“If we didn’t have the (December) ice storm, I don’t think you could tell that a tornado hit,” said Steve Lawver, director of community economic development. “Everything has been fixed or repaired.”
Though five years is long enough for buildings to be rebuilt, it is not enough time for the memories to fade.
Phil Cook, superintendent of the Carl Junction R-1 School District, still gets emotional recalling the damage to schools, and the community’s response.
“As I walked around the buildings after the storm, there had to be 200 people who I didn’t know,” Cook said. “They said they would get the kids back in school. They weren’t even from Carl Junction, and they were bound and determined to get the buildings ready.”
Every one of the district’s schools sustained some sort of damage in the tornado.
The storm caused about $6.5 million in damage to the district and about $3 million to the city. More than 500 homes and 20 businesses were damaged, including City Hall and headquarters of the Carl Junction Fire Protection District.
“When I got to the station after the storm, I saw a rack of fire hoses sitting outside,” Chief Bill Dunn said. “At first I thought, ‘Who would leave that outside?’ Then I realized no one moved it. The wall was gone.”
Rebuilding began almost immediately. Lawver said most buildings were rebuilt within 18 months.
Cook said schools were ready for students that August.
Though the tornado caused destruction, it also prompted a lot of beneficial rebirth, Dunn said.
“In all honesty, the town is in better shape now that it was before the tornado,” Dunn said. “A lot of old houses were rebuilt or repaired.”
Lawver said the storm also helped improve communications between emergency responders.
“We have a lot better grasp on emergency planning now,” Lawver said. “The whole region learned a lot, and the December ice storm showed how much it improved.”
Cook said the thing that has changed most is how people in the community relate to each other.
“Someone said, ‘Before the storm we were neighbors, now we’re family,’” Cook said. “Usually, we don’t take the time to walk across the street and check on our neighbors. But that changed here. We became closer.”

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