Thursday, May 15, 2008

May 15, 2008 - Picher, OK Tornado

After the response phase of a disaster, we often help people clean up their home lots…but not here. This community will not rebuild so people are returning just to get whatever valuables they can before leaving for good. It’s sad because most of what I see in disasters is people rebuilding and finding hope in the rebuilding process.

Today I saw a man stumbling through a pile of rubble that used to be his home. It looked from a distance as if he was having a difficult time walking around the home site. I walked up to him and asked him if he needed help with anything. At that point most of what we were doing in the community was lifting up large objects so people could find personal belongings.

The man looked at me and without hesitation said, “See this home? I don’t care about any of it. This used to be a beautiful two-story home with four nice cars, and I could care less about it. All I want is to find a green briefcase of photos of my mother who passed away years ago.”

His name was John. I explained we could help and minutes later we had the Prentice loader and CAT skid steer pulling apart this man’s home piece by piece. A few hours later Seth thought he found the photos but it turns out there were two green briefcases, and this one did not have the pictures in it. We kept at it and later that afternoon we found the green briefcase of pictures. I will never forget seeing Seth and John standing in the middle of this huge pile of rubble that used to be a home – looking at photos. At that point nothing else matter to John. He didn’t care about anything except that briefcase.

I’m not sure if this is because people are in shock but I have yet to meet someone who has been through one of these disasters, who looked at their home and said, “I can’t go on.” I have only met people who have said, “I’m so glad my family and friends are alive. We can rebuild these homes but we can’t replace our friends and family.”


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