By Melissa Dunson

mdunson@joplinglobe.com

Crawling into the bathtub, Joyce Cox heard the roof tear off her home.

“I thought, ‘It’s a good time to pray, I’m already on my knees,’ ” Cox said.

Seconds later, Cox opened her eyes. Her bathroom had fallen in around her. Through a small opening in the debris, she saw dark clouds swirling overhead.

“I know it’s strange, but I remember thinking, ‘I don’t want to be in a tornado,’” she said.

Cox and her neighbors were first in the line of fire a year ago today, after a tornado that touched down east of Welch, Okla., pounded through three counties.

When it was over, 21 people were dead from a single tornado. Hundreds were injured.

It flattened Cox’s home, killed her sister-in-law, Chizuri Cox, 80, also of Picher, and dealt what she considers the final blow to her hometown.

In all, 160 homes were destroyed in Picher and six people died.

A year later, Cox said she tries — without success — to forget May 10, 2008.

“You try not to think about it, but people keep bringing it back up,” she said.

In Missouri, Roy Seward, of Newtonia, was at the far end of that same tornado’s path. He said he can’t sleep recently. Every time it thunders, he looks up, half smiling, half wincing. It reminds him of the day a year ago when that tornado hit his house while he and his wife Dottie were inside.

“The wind never really bothered me before, but there’s got to be some type of trauma still there, because I just feel real alert right now,” Dottie said one day last week as more storm clouds were brewing in a bruised sky. “Everybody around here is real tense right now.”

Heads up

The supercell that caused all that devastation started in Southeast Kansas, touching down first near the Labette and Cherokee county line before dropping south into Oklahoma.

Cox recalls a customer from Grove, Okla., stopping at her Picher burger joint, The Gorilla Cage, and leaving a warning.

“He said, ‘Keep your eyes on the sky, it doesn’t look too hot out there,’ ” Cox said.

Minutes later, members of the Picher Fire Department heard a frantic radio report from a Welch, Okla., volunteer firefighter of a monster twister on the ground, headed for them. At 5:20 p.m., Picher’s tornado sirens went off. Six minutes later, the National Weather Service issued its official warning.

Michael Sweeten, a Picher firefighter/paramedic, took a firetruck to the top of a hill trying to spot the tornado. He was looking for a black funnel, instead, he saw a wall so wide it engulfed everything in sight. Three-quarters of a mile wide, the tornado was on the horizon.

“We got out of the truck, into what we thought was a ditch and got on each side of the tree and held on,” Sweeten said.

Picher Mayor Tim Reeves has seen his share of tornadoes, but said this was different.

“I’ve heard a freight train and it was nothing like a freight train — it was terrible,” Reeves said.

Picher was hit at 5:39 p.m. The twister picked up a car with four people in it. Samuel Don Berry, 20; his wife, Tracie Dawn Berry, 19; her uncle, Darrell Edward Patterson II, 28, of Wagoner, Okla.; and her sister, Kenna Garrison. They were on their way to Samuel’s mother’s home in Miami, Okla., for a Korean dinner. Everyone in the car died, except Garrison, who was thrown clear and somehow survived.

The tornado also killed Mistie Dawn Kelley, 30, and Linda Christine Mathis, 48, in their homes in Picher.

All that damage to a century-old town, all those homes and lives lost, all in three minutes, Reeves said.

Next up

The tornado lost strength near the Oklahoma-Missouri line, dropping to an EF-1 at 5:59 p.m., the smallest tornado possible. But just after entering Missouri, the twister merged with another that had just formed and they grew to a single mile-wide EF-4 monster.

It destroyed Betty Geary’s home and farm and ripped the manufactured home her son and daughter-in-law, Tom and Sharon Geary, were living in off of its foundation.

The Gearys were lucky. Linda K. Hasty, 59, and Daniel, Barbara, Jeff and Terrance “Joe” Monroe all died when the tornado hit their Seneca-area mobile homes.

Winds whipped by at 170 miles per hour, debarking trees, the National Weather Service reported, Cars were thrown up to one-half mile. Richard, Kathy and Clayton Rountree and Ruby Bilke, all of Joplin, died when the tornado struck their van on a rural road near Seneca. They were on the way to a wedding. Richard was planning to sing at the event.

Christine Petree, of Morrisville, was also killed when her car was blown off of Missouri Highway 43 by the tornado. Paul Gallemore, 74, of Seneca, also was killed.

The tornado hit the intersection of Iris Road and Highway 43 head on. It was the home Lant’s Feed store and Lant’s Bridal store. Within seconds, all that was left of the two businesses was a pile of debris. Nearby homes disappeared, leaving only the concrete pads. Debris would continue to be found from their businesses for days, some of it near Springfield.

Tyler Casey, 21, a volunteer firefighter with the Seneca Area Fire Protection District, was at the intersection, trying to alert residents and urge them to safety. He warned at least three people to seek shelter before getting back into his vehicle. He was hit with the full force of the twister and later died from his injuries.

As the tornado traveled up Iris Road, wreaking havoc on farms and homes, Neosho-area cattle farmer Gary Pearman rushed home to check for damage. He was in Joplin eating dinner when he heard the storm reports.

“It was depressing. It was shocking. It was unbelievable,” Pearman said of the devastation.

The tornado ripped the roof from Pearman’s house, destroyed a barn and some outbuildings, injured some animals and downed hundreds of trees.

“I thought, ‘We will never, ever get it all cleaned up,’ ” he said.

Also in the path of the storm was Rockie N. Peterson’s home and goat farm. Peterson, 64, died from his injuries. The tornado also killed Teri L. Cook, 53, who lived just north of Racine.

‘It never stopped’

The twister crossed Missouri Highway 86 and Route BB, debarking more trees. It continued east and southeast, crossing Route NN, striking the unincorporated community of Fredville. It hit just north of Neosho by 6:10 p.m.

It hit just south of Granby as an EF-1 with winds of 110 miles per hour.

Bill Lynch, a Granby resident, said he came back up from his basement to grab a flashlight. He realized the storm was worse than he originally thought when he heard large debris hitting the side of his house. The debris was the wall of a nearby church.

“There was this deafening crack of a tree going through the house,” Lynch said.

Two more trees came crashing through Lynch’s home. He lost his garage, outbuilding and his airplane hangar in the storm, but said one look at the leveled church next door made him feel lucky.

“I was just glad I was alive,” he said. “It was unbelievable.”

About 6:20 p.m., the twister approached the small town of Newtonia. Roy and Dottie Seward heard the weatherman say there was a tornado on the ground in Granby and they had 10 minutes to seek cover.

“About that time, the lights went out,” Roy said.

Two-by-fours shot through the windows, walls and roof of their 168-year old home. Roy and Dottie ran to the other side of the house and jumped into a closet just as the storm peeled off the roof.

“It was just a constant roar, like how thunder roars, but it never stopped,” Roy said.

The twister blew straight through Newtonia by 6:20 p.m. with winds of 100 miles per hour, damaging the majority of homes in the tiny town.

County officials estimate the tornado destroyed or seriously damaged 35 homes and mobile homes and more than 100 barns and outbuildings in Newton County. The tornado killed 14 people in that county.

The storm crossed into Barry County, and damaged turkey barns and homes near the intersection of Mulberry Road and Zebra Road by 6:40 p.m. It hit north of Purdy as an EF-2, snapping power poles and destroying both mobile and frame homes. Ellis Kelly “K.J.” Kisler, 40, of Seligman, also died in the storm.

The tornado weakened as it passed east of Purdy and lifted near McDowell. All together, the tornado destroyed 12 homes in Barry County and damaged another 150 to 175 homes and outbuildings.

Another 200 people in the Missouri path of the storm were injured.

‘Different feel.’

Picher had seen its share of trouble. The former mining town in the middle of a Superfund site was already in the midst of a federal buyout when the storm hit. The tornado hastened the death of Picher.

“It was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” Reeves said of the tornado. “That was it for the town.”

Cox’s restaurant is now the only place to eat in Picher. It’s helped her business in some ways, but her customers are quickly moving away. The twister has changed the whole landscape and feeling of Cox’s hometown.

“It just kind of flattened the town out,” Cox said. “All the trees are bare.”

Pearman said the landscape of rural Newton County has also changed dramatically.

“When you’re out here at night, it looks like a town, there’s lights everywhere,” Pearman said of the wide open landscape.

Although Pearman said he can’t believe it has been a year since the tornado, he said some of the area’s wounds will never heal. He points to whole pastures filled with downed trees, mangled steel and flattened houses. Over and over again he said, “That will probably never change, never be cleaned up. It will still be like that 20 years from now.”

“It will never be normal again,” Pearman said of the area. “There are places here that will never be cleaned up. Some of the areas are nonresidential, some people don’t have the money. It makes me sad.”

For others, such as Lynch, the time seemed to drag on. Lynch said he was so overwhelmed trying to rebuild his home and outbuildings that he recently retired from his longtime job with Southwest Missouri Bank to finish the work.

Dottie Seward said she also had to quit her job to clean up the mess the tornado left at her Newtonia home. She and Roy just re-sided their home in the last few months, but still aren’t done with the repairs.

Pearman said some Newton County residents are rebuilding, but said many others moved either because the memories at the properties had become too painful or because they could not find contractors fast enough.

The Sewards said the small community of Newtonia shrank from 231 people before the tornado, to 105 people now.

‘Forever’

Bill and Jane Lant did rebuild Lant’s Feed store at Iris Road and Highway 43, but decided not to rebuild the bridal store. The Homebuilders Association of Southwest Missouri took on rebuilding Betty Geary’s home at that same intersection as their charity project.

Tom and Sharon Geary have another trailer and are saving money to rebuild their home.

Dottie said the one good thing that came out of the tornado was a greater sense of community for the areas that were hit. Neighbors who had never met before spent days sifting through rubble and rebuilding barns. Area businesses gave affected employees days off and provided food for the clean-up efforts.

“I felt kind of alone,” Dottie said. “But then this happened and everyone seems closer together and more appreciative. It’s just awesome.”

Pearman said good or bad, area residents will never forget the storm. The Mother’s Day tornado of 2008 will live on, he said, in stories and the wreckage and debris will serve as reminders to those who weren’t born yet.

“People will remember this forever,” he said. “At least until this generation passes.”