Day 5 Joplin 211

Today we woke up even before the sun was up! We all woke up at 6 to make sure we were on the road at 6:45! We found out we were going to help out at the 3 fire stations in Joplin today. Today all the fire stations were passing out free weather alert radios to the citizens who resided within the city limits. We split up into three groups and headed to the different stations. Erin, Shannon, and I were based at station 1 which is the main  fire station in Joplin. When we arrived at the station for a very quick briefing of how to handle the paperwork, there was already a line. By the time the doors had opened, one of the fire fighters said the line went from the fire station (which was at the end of 2nd street) to the end of third street. We passed out radios, kept track of serial numbers, and checking off each citizen as they came through.  Getting to be in contact with so many citizens was such an eye opener. Getting something as simple as a weather alert radio was such a gift to many, and said it was well worth the two and a half hour wait. Even though it has been almost a year since the disaster, a state of paranoia was very apparent. One lady told me that this week has been incredibly hard on her because it has been raining all week, and that if it gets to windy she starts to cry and have panic attacks.

One other thing that was a reoccurring theme among all the residents was a change of address. One question we had to ask everyone as they handed us their drivers license was "is this your current address?" Many of the answers were no, due to the fact that there are no longer a house at the address they were at. This made me put myself in their shoes, how it would be like if all the sudden my house was uprooted and gone, my parents lost their jobs, or even someone I loved had died due to a disaster. The fire fighters also shared with us their experience. They were all up for 96 hours strait without any sleep. Many other volunteer fire fighters came in from surrounding areas, some even bought their own plane tickets from Alaska and Los Angeles to come and help out in Joplin. I asked one of the fire fighters what was one of the worst things they saw, and they answered that there was a 7 foot boa constrictor that he had accidentally touched trying to save someone from debris, the snake had been someone's pet and luckily was dead but still scared him!

Many people were so grateful that we were there helping, but the fire fighters were especially happy to have us. They were all very fun to be around and they all had a great sense of humor which kept us preoccupied! We also got to look at the fire truck and the fire dumbies!