The Joplin Tornado

The devastation was indescribable. You know that feeling when your heart sinks, well I had that feeling all the while I was there. It was a feeling of helplessness, like you want to do more but didn't really know where to begin, but always staying hopeful you would help uncover someone else that was still alive. 

Tornadoes can completely wipe out a community. I know that now, and I have a new respect for that facet of nature's wrath.

Wal-Mart was leveled flat, and several people perished.

This was an Academy Sporting goods store. I heard there was looting there and some guys were trying to make off with several guns, and someone may (or may not) have been shot by police in the confrontation that ensued.

it was like a bomb hit everywhere you went for miles

A shopping center...cars were tossed about like toys.

As far as you could see the trees were swept away. Only bare trunks stood here and there.

Joplin High School

Joplin High School

The series of arches is a walkway between buildings at the high school...I'm doing a painting with these arches as the subject, similar to the painting And A Stream Runs Through It.....only it'll be called, And A Tornado Runs Through It

Trees were entangled in everything it seemed... where trees aren't suppose to be...

more of the high school

The only thing left standing of the St. Mary's Catholic church was the cross -- like a small miracle.