By Derek Spellman
Globe Staff Writer
JOPLIN, Mo. —
Jessi Tucker was driving down Range Line Road en route to her apartment to retrieve her laptop computer when she saw black smoke boiling into the sky.
“I just had that gut feeling: What if it was my place,” she said Tuesday.
It turned out it was. It also turned out there was little she and others now displaced by the Monday morning blaze at Oxford Park Apartments could do but watch the flames consume their apartments and personal effects.
Tuesday has been a day of making lists, about what victims have lost and what now multiple community organizations have been providing to victims.
Boxes and bags of donated clothes and other supplies started piling higher on a set of tables arrayed outside Office Depot, where a newly minted community group, Good Neighbors Association, started collecting materials to aid the victims. Throughout the day, word came about multiple efforts under way.
A photo studio offered free photo shoots to families to replace lost photographs. An organization offered free meal vouchers. A realtor volunteered to lead a food drive. A church in Webb City offered donations.
“It’s been a lot of spontaneous donations,” said Marie Colby, volunteer public affairs coordinator for the local chapter of the American Red Cross.
For more on this story pick up a copy of Wednesday's Joplin Globe or go to joplinglobe.com and register for our E-edition.
