{"id":457,"date":"2011-06-03T20:15:56","date_gmt":"2011-06-04T01:15:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.historicjoplin.org\/?p=457"},"modified":"2011-06-03T20:16:13","modified_gmt":"2011-06-04T01:16:13","slug":"guest-piece-down-not-out-leslie-simpson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.historicjoplin.org\/?p=457","title":{"rendered":"Guest Post: Down Not Out &#8211; Leslie Simpson"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/24317830@N04\/5795306932\/in\/photostream\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" title=\"Joplin Franklin Technology Center\" src=\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2353\/5795306932_707651ace3.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>DOWN NOT OUT<\/p>\n<p>By Leslie Simpson<\/p>\n<p>On  a pleasant Sunday evening, May 22, 2011, an EF-5 tornado suddenly raged  through densely-populated south Joplin. \u00a0It destroyed almost everything  in its path for 13.8 miles in distance and up to a mile in width.<\/p>\n<p>The  tornado smashed down in southwest Joplin, wrecking residential areas,  Cunningham Park, schools, medical offices, and a major hospital complex,  St. John&#8217;s. It headed east, obliterating untold acres of late  nineteenth and early twentieth century houses. \u00a0The storm&#8217;s wrath  intensified as it forged east, razing businesses along Main Street, more  neighborhoods, and Joplin High School. \u00a0It wiped out much of the  lifeblood of Joplin&#8217;s economy, the commercial strip on Range Line Road,  then rampaged on, demolishing housing, banks, industrial buildings, and  more schools and churches. \u00a0It finally dissipated east of Joplin, after  destroying or damaging an estimated 8,000 homes and businesses.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/24317830@N04\/5795307028\/in\/photostream\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" title=\"Joplin High School\" src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3413\/5795307028_9858b03bce.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"349\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>At  the time of this writing, authorities have confirmed 138 fatalities, a  number which continues to rise. \u00a0More than 1,150 people sustained  injuries. \u00a0The Joplin tornado, the deadliest since modern record keeping  began in 1950, ranks eighth among the deadliest tornadoes in U.S.  history.<\/p>\n<p>We  are in shock. \u00a0We drive familiar streets yet cannot even recognize  where we are. \u00a0The cruel landscape of endless rubble and shredded trees  reminds us of shattered lives and endless grief. \u00a0We have lost so much,  and we are hurting on many levels. \u00a0But our spirit is strong, as  evidenced by the person who spray-painted \u201cDown not out\u201d on the shards  of his former home.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/24317830@N04\/5794749339\/in\/photostream\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" title=\"God Bless Joplin\" src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3213\/5794749339_38b98bf36b.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"311\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Leslie Simpson, an expert on Joplin history and architecture, is the director of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.postlibrary.org\/\">Post Memorial Art Reference Library<\/a>, located within the Joplin Public Library.  She is the author of <em>From Lincoln Logs to Lego Blocks: How Joplin Was Built<\/em>, <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.historicjoplin.org\/?p=54\">Now and Then and Again: Joplin Historic Architecture<\/a><\/em>. and the soon to be released, <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Joplin-Postcard-History-Leslie-Simpson\/dp\/0738583227\/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1\">Joplin: A Postcard History<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>DOWN NOT OUT By Leslie Simpson On a pleasant Sunday evening, May 22, 2011, an EF-5 tornado suddenly raged through densely-populated south Joplin. \u00a0It destroyed almost everything in its path for 13.8 miles in distance and up to a mile in width. The tornado smashed down in southwest Joplin, wrecking residential areas, Cunningham Park, schools, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,738,37,1780,340,395],"tags":[1785,1792,1789,1793,1794,1781,1787,1786,1788,328,1791,31,376,1782,203,1783,1784,204,1790,1362],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.historicjoplin.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.historicjoplin.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.historicjoplin.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.historicjoplin.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.historicjoplin.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.historicjoplin.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.historicjoplin.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.historicjoplin.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.historicjoplin.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}