By Derek Spellman

dspellman@joplinglobe.com

Before it was destroyed by the May 10 tornado, Lant’s Feed Store doubled as a social hub where people swapped gossip, kept abreast of area news and enjoyed a cup of coffee.

So perhaps it was a sign that Bill Lant found the coffee maker virtually intact after the storm tore apart the store and scattered its contents.

“How that was possible, we don’t know,” Lant said.

Lant’s rebuilt store, complete with the surviving coffee maker, re-opens today at the same site, near the intersection of Missouri Highway 43 and Iris Road. Although the feed store has been rebuilt, the bridal shop that once accompanied it has not.

The intersection highlights what residents and officials have seen in other parts of the county hit by the tornado: There are signs of recovery amid vestiges of destruction.

Across the street from Lant’s Feed Store, a new home is being built next to the ruins of an old one.

Lant said it sometimes feels strange to look around and find the houses he was accustomed to seeing for years either gone or being rebuilt.

“In some respects, it seems like it (the storm) was yesterday. In others, it seems like forever,” Lant said.

County survey

Gary Roark, the Newton County Emergency Management director, said he plans to continue with a survey of the county next week to gauge how much debris still needs to be removed. Some homeowners disposed of their debris by burying it, burning it or hauling it away.

But Roark did say he has driven through pockets where storm-wrecked houses have not been touched. He speculated that some of those property owners await final settlements from their insurance companies or from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

At the historic Ritchey Mansion in Newtonia, meanwhile, repairs are virtually complete.

The tornado tore off all three of the mansion’s chimneys, part of the brick in the front and several large chunks of the roof. It also inflicted other exterior and interior damage. All of the repair work had been complete last week, save for some painting and recarpeting, said Kay Hively, a member of the Newtonia Battlefields Protection Association, which owns the Civil War-era home.