Spirit of Hope: The Year After the Joplin Tornado

As homeowners, business leaders and city officials in Moore, Okla. It was at 5: More than 9, people lost their homes and businesses were damaged or destroyed. Volunteers — nearly ,, according to city officials — poured into Joplin to help with the rebuilding effort.

City manager Chris Rohr says 84 percent of homes and 90 percent of businesses have been rebuilt, repaired or permitted for construction. While the rebuilding effort has taken longer than most people expected, Jane Cage, chairwoman of the Citizens Advisory Recovery Team, says ultimately Joplin will emerge bigger and stronger than it was before the storm. One year ago, correspondent Jeffrey Brown visited with Cage and others in Joplin to talk about the rebuilding efforts.

Now, two years after the storm, here is an update on some of the people who spoke with the NewsHour. As she looks around Joplin, Jane Cage says she is amazed at the progress that has been made.

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At one point, nearly FEMA trailers dotted the landscape. Today, only 20 trailers remain to shelter people who lost their homes in the storm. Most of the residential development is happening in the neighborhoods where Habitat for Humanity has built more than 61 houses. The rebuilding process definitely takes longer than you believe it will. Before, I might have been afraid to ask for something or approach a person in power.

Now I never hesitate. I think doors have opened for Joplin that we never even considered before. Huff says he is proud of the headway the Joplin School district has made over the past two years.

We were on Indiana and I can remember driving up to 20 th Street. I could see clear to the hospital. There was nothing there. I saw the school, then I looked slightly to the left. Our house was built a little better than the ones around us. It was the least damaged.

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The lower level was still standing. The first words she said when she saw what was left of her home will be forever burned into her memory. At that point, Sarah got out of the car, stepping over downed power lines, walking between cars. She spotted Will and ran to him, hugging him.

The two stood crying.

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They checked on neighbors to make sure they were all right and then went into their house to see what had survived. I love playing the violin. It has always been special to me. For the next few weeks after the tornado, Sarah and her family stayed with Matt Proctor, president of Ozark Christian College, his wife, Katie, and their six children. Some of the time Sarah stayed with Rebecca McMillin, her best friend since kindergarten. I went up to the cage and he started barking.

It was so good to see him. A new home had to be found for Rusty after the Kesslers moved into an apartment, where they would have to stay for quite a while before their house could be rebuilt. In the days following the tornado, many friends helped the Kessler family through its ordeal, including some they had never met before. They helped us with our house and helped us move into our apartment.

The summer was a blur for Sarah. When she returned, it was not to the home she had known for her whole life, but to a place she had never seen before.

My room was full of boxes, so I stayed on the couch in the living room for a while, but that was okay. It took us quite a while to get everything put in its place.

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• Obama hails the spirit and resilience of Joplin, one year on from tornado!

It was mass chaos. This was Obama's second visit to Joplin in a year, the first a week after the twister left its deadly calling card on 22 May By any measure, the intervening months have been extraordinary. The president invoked the volunteer who came from Japan to pay back to America the help his country had received after its tsunami. United Arab Emirates got a shout out too, for donating a brand new laptop to every Joplin high school student, as did a local baker, Liz Easton, who lost her home and her business but still had the energy to make 1, cupcakes for the school prom.

It is perhaps too much to expect a sitting president in an election year to deliver a whole commencement speech, in front of TV cameras at prime time, without having one dig at his opponent.

In Tornado Aftermath, What Residents of Moore Can Learn From Joplin

You will meet people who try to build themselves up by tearing others down; who believe looking after others is only for suckers. But that was the only whiff of politicking. The rest was devoted to the spirit of Joplin and its students, rising again against the odds. And even though I expect some of you will ultimately end up leaving Joplin, I'm convinced that Joplin will never leave you. Today, Joplin high school is nothing more than a mammoth pile of rubble.