Grain Valley man called to Joplin to restore cell towers

(J.L. Lane, of Grain Valley, is a communications-tower technician.)

It was May 22, roughly 5:20 p.m. as I was getting dinner ready and nestling down to watch “World News” and then “60 Minutes.” I was when in middle of preparing the plates when I heard, like many in this country, that Joplin had been hit by a big tornado. No one really knew at the time just how big, but the first reports were looking grim. I had a strong gut feeling I needed to start packing a bag.

I am a tower technician (crew leader) and the main bulk of my work is in the cellular market. A big part of that is in the southern part of Missouri, all of Arkansas and Oklahoma. Joplin was one of our longtime customer’s area. I had no doubt where I was I headed Monday morning. I had driven through small towns and fields where tornadoes had been and had seen a few pictures of what the Alabama tornado had done to some towers in that area, but nothing in my life – no movie, no news footage and no pictures – could prepare me for mass devastation and sadness I was about to witness.

Monday morning came and, as I expected, the call came in. They needed whatever crews were available. Jeremy, a technician in the area, said they had no service whatsoever in the impact zone. We high-tailed it to the warehouse.

We got as much of everything we would need as possible, stopped at Wal-Mart for food and water and set off into the unknown. In some of my younger guys on the crew, I saw an anxiousness to get down there and see just what they had been watching on the news. Youthful curiosity, I guess. I, on the other hand, had an uneasy feeling about it. Something inside was telling me I was headed into a sea of sadness, and I was right.

Upon arrival, I met a technician in Carthage, Mo., handed off some radio cards and was told to go on stand-by. We checked in to our rooms and decided to go on a recon of some sites that were hit. As we rolled into town, another massive storm was descending upon Joplin. No tornado this time around, just torrential rains to add to an already chaotic situation. On the outer edges, as we came into town, we saw signs and debris scattered about, and some, but not all, trees damaged.

I knew Joplin well, as my mother’s family was from Lamar, which is 30 miles to the north. As a lad I would spend summers with my aunt Paula, and on Fridays she would take me to Joplin for dinner and a movie. I also had done a considerable amount of work there, so I was no stranger to the town.

The closer we got to the central part of town, the more the ugly face of what this tornado had done to the heart of Joplin began to reveal itself. The truck cab went silent as we all tried to take in what we were seeing. Comprehension and reasoning were all out the window, and the overwhelming feeling of heartache and sadness set in on us all.

There are no words that can accurately describe with justice what I saw that first day and those three that followed. The closet thing I had ever seen to this destruction were pictures in school and on TV of Hiroshima and the atomic bomb. It seemed to go on as far as the eye could see. People standing around on mounds that they used to call home, others walking around aimlessly, looking for some kind of familiarity to gain some bearings on where they were. No animals seen running around, no birds flying, just debris, confusion and all this damn rain.

Looking out at the scattered remains, it all seemed like just mounds of wood, glass, drywall and steel with some cloth thrown into the mix. When I looked closer, I began to see children’s toys, people’s pictures, a wedding dress or what was left of it in the splintered toothpick protruding from the ground that used to resemble a tree.

I am by nature a thick-skinned, stern person. I have to be, I work in heavy construction and I am also a crew leader in what many call one of the most dangerous occupations in the world, but at that moment it took every bit of strength I had not to break down like a 41-year-old baby. As we drove through, we took pictures, as we all do in this digital age. After leaving the site of the cross and Mother Mary that were left standing, we decided we needed to make our way back to get some rest.

As we were leaving, I saw an elderly couple – at least mid 70s – standing on top of their home/mound of rubble. Neither had a raincoat nor did they look like they cared if they didn’t. Both were bent at the waist and knees, he with his left hand and she with her right-hand both extended, sifting through the debris looking for any remnants that they had accumulated through a long life together, the other hands locked together for stability on unstable ground. The tornado took everything from them but their love for one another. I started to take a picture but then I drew my camera back. I just couldn’t do it, it didn’t feel right.

The next day (Tuesday) after making some adjustments at a tower just outside the impact zone, we were asked to go set up a mobile tower behind the Wal-Mart that got hit on East 20th. Upon arrival it was still chaotic. What to do, how to do it and where do we start? Once everything arrived, we had the site up and on air in four hours.

When I arrived back at the room, another worker from a different trade asked me if we put up a site near the hardest hit area of Range Line Road. After informing him that we did, he told us his signal was very much hit and miss until around 5 p.m., then it went to full signal. It felt good to know that we were making some kind of contribution.

At the site, a 200-foot self support tower had collapsed into the apartment complexes to the north of it and directly behind Pepsi and Wal-Mart. In my downtime I had to talked to some of the residents, who had said no one lost their lives in the complex.

I was asked to go on stand-by Wednesday while everybody figured out what sites were damaged and what we needed to do. Meanwhile, I was scheduled to put up another mobile tower off of Shifferdecker Road that night; units were on their way from Dallas. It was going to be a very long day.

That stand-by time sitting between the Wal-Mart and Home Depot, was tough on me. People looking for any remains of home to the right of me while search and rescue was to the left looking for bodies in Home Depot and Wal-Mart. They did recover three that day I was there. If called upon, I will be there, but I hope I never have to have a day like that day again as long as I live.

That night we all converged upon a field to set up the mobile tower unit, and with the teamwork of all involved, it went flawlessly. We finished that day and went into the next on two hours sleep, and that may be overstating it by an hour.

Out in that field that evening one of my crew members stumbled upon a little girl’s dress shoe, the kind that she would wear to church or on Easter Sunday. This shoe had no business in the middle of a field, and we all could only hope and pray that the princess who this shoe belonged to was safe in the warmth of her parents’ embrace.

I am back home now, but I am finding it hard to put behind what I have seen. It was not all negative by far. All the different companies that are otherwise competitors working together for a common goal, the locals that weren’t affected coming out to help those who were. All the different agencies and law enforcement who had and are doing an impeccable job dealing with a disaster that has never been seen on this scale in this area.

I know that after my experiences in Joplin I will always have a piece of Joplin in me, and piece of me will always remain in Joplin. I look forward to helping the town rebuild and move past this tragedy. I am also currently working on a project called The Joplin Shoe Project: Soles for Souls – quality work boots and gloves for all, quality children’s and elderly adults’ shoes. The little girl’s shoe in the field was the inspiration, and I can’t just sit back while people in my own backyard are suffering. I have to do something more.