15 years on, Joplin’s civic updraft

Much of the country met Joplin, Missouri, on the city’s worst day: May 22, 2011. That’s when an EF5 tornado tore through the metropolis of some 50,000 people, shredding a path several miles long and three-quarters of a mile wide. More than 150 people died. It was one of the deadliest tornadoes in U.S. history.In this week’s magazine, you will meet Joplin again – but through a very different lens. Fifteen years have passed since that disaster, and writer Harry Bruinius, as part of his summerlong project traveling Route 66, spent time in this Midwest community to explore what it means to “rebuild.”This can lead to profound questions. How does a place “come back” and how do people “come back” to a place? What is shelter? And how does a community change, evolve, and embrace the new when the old landmarks of life are – literally or metaphorically – blown away? Why We Wrote This Fifteen years after one of the country’s deadliest tornadoes, writer Harry Bruinius goes to Joplin, Missouri, to explore what it means for a community to rebuild. Other stories in our magazine this week explore similar themes. Some answers run through this issue in Harry’s story, and in others. Taylor Luck writes of a new sense of resilience and community pride forming within the United Arab Emirates in the face of attacks from Iran. Contributor Noraldin Jadat writes from Sudan about how a war-torn society reconstructs its artistic heritage after – and despite – conflict.For Harry and his editor, Scott Blanchard, Joplin has a special resonance.Scott was there before, back in 2011. About two months after the tornado, he volunteered to help the local newspaper, The Joplin Globe, as it covered the disaster. Scott recalls driving toward the city, wondering when he would see the damage.“It was fine for several blocks and then it’s right in front of you,” Scott remembers. “I can reconnect with that feeling now. It was all laid bare.”When Scott joined Harry in Joplin for some of the reporting for this week’s story, he tried to place himself – deciphering where he walked 15 years earlier and how that connected to where he was today. The built landscape, of course, had totally changed. He finally oriented himself by the cross of a church at the top of a hill – a cross that was still standing after the tornado.What hadn’t changed, Scott and Harry found, were the hearts of the people in Joplin. Their first stop was the office of the newspaper with which Scott had volunteered – and where the editor was now eager to help Scott and Harry with their work.“Nearly everyone in Joplin agrees,” Harry writes in his story (see page 16). “The tornado left a legacy of commitment to one another.”