MitchMash: Joplin provides a blueprint for Oklahoma tornado victims

I had completed my long Monday to-do list except for one thing. "Call Jeff Starkweather back." As I looked down at the piece of paper, it jumped out like written in big bold red ink.

"Oh my God, call Jeff Starkweather back," I thought to myself.

Starkweather is the athletic director at Joplin (Mo.), a man I've become good friends with since we did the Beyond the X story on the year-later recovery efforts of his school after the devastating 2011 tornado that claimed 162 lives.

I called Starkweather Saturday because I had run across the story that reminded me we hadn't spoke for a few months. It hadn't donned on me that it was almost the two year anniversary — May 22 — since the "big one."

He didn't answer, so I left him a message, and he returned it the following day while I was away. Phone tag had officially started.

But fun and casual catch-up mode took a far more urgent and serious tone when Monday's news of the Oklahoma City and Moore tornado struck down.

I turned on the TV and watched the horror like everyone else in the country about the master twister that has recently been upgraded to EF-5 in force and that has taken 91 lives, according to the New York Times.

You get wrapped up in it and wonder how in the world would you react in such a crisis. You hug your kids a little tighter, thank your lucky stars and pray for the victims.

It's hard to focus on work and responsibilities and lists. But there staring at me in the face was the name of Starkweather — "My God, Starkweather."

I called him immediately and thankfully he picked up. He and his students and faculty and city were fine, but understandably shaken. They're right in the path of tornado alley and have had sirens go off the previous 48 hours, Starkweather said.

"We're much more sensitive to them than we were before 2011," he said. "We were particularly so Sunday during graduation and being so close to the anniversary and all."

The 2011 tornado happened on Sunday just after graduation.

That EF-5 twister was the deadliest in six decades and spread one mile wide and 22 miles long, and beyond the deaths it injured more than 1,100 others and destroyed at least 8,000 homes, 18,000 cars and 450 businesses.

It also completely destroyed the high school, which is 215 miles northeast of Oklahoma City.

Starkweather and fellow Joplin residents aren't just empathetic at the moment — they're living a horrible nightmare.

"Watching the TV, it brings back so many memories," said the 49-year-old Starkweather. "It looks so similar, the destruction and debris. I heard a reporter on the Weather Channel say he hasn't seen this much destruction since Joplin. He said it looks so similar. I was thinking it looks exactly like Joplin.

"I sure feel for those people." The day after that

When asked if he had any advice for them, Starkweather, a calm presence and deliberate speaker, thought for a long while. As always, he answered honestly.

"No," he said. "Not really."

Starkweather wasn't being defeatist or negative. Simply, it was much too soon to offer any constructive insight or meaningful words. What can anyone hear in the middle of chaos and carnage?

Those in the fray are simply in survival and grieving mode. It's a state of shock and disbelief. Rational thoughts and instruction and advice are pretty much gone with the 200 mph-plus winds.

"The main thing I said then and I'll say now is that all of this brings into reality that No. 1, life is short, and No. 2, you never know when it can be taken away," Starkweather said. "The most important part of life is not the stuff, it's the friends and family and loved ones. Treasure and protect them first."

That, of course, is a warning before a twister arrives. The best piece of advice for what to do once the rescue phase is over in Oklahoma is exactly the action of what the good people of Joplin and some 50,000 volunteers from all around the country offered — A constant, unyielding, pull-up-your-bootstraps work ethic to start over.

Easy to say. Painstaking and laborious to pull it off.

As President Obama said at the 2012 Joplin High School graduation:

"The story of Joplin isn't just what happened that day, it's the story of what happened the next day. And the day after that. And all the days and weeks and months that followed."

That is exactly what our Beyond the X piece was about, a blueprint of how a school — and the town around it — rebuilds from the inside out once torn literally to the ground. One-third of Joplin was destroyed but by the time we got there – almost a year later – more than 70 percent of the businesses had been rebuilt.

Here are nuts and bolts of how it got done.

* Set goals and dream big

Just two days after the tornado, an ambitious start date of Aug. 17 for school was made by Joplin Superintendent of Schools C.J. Huff. That set a tone and focus for workers, the community and the students to follow.

A new temporary and innovative 90,000 square foot campus for upperclassmen – at the local mall no less – was constructed by a group of Kansas City architects in 84 days to meet the start date. New MacBook laptops were donated by the United Arab Emirates and loaned to each student.

On the one-year anniversary of the Joplin tornado, more than 5,000 residents and Missouri Governor Jay Nixon broke ground on a new $90 million state-of-the-art high school where rubble from the demolished school sat. The opening of that school is scheduled for August, 2014.

* One day at a time
 
Joplin football coach Chris Shields told us back then it was simply a day-by-day-by-day process. Which, health practitioners will tell you, is the best way to live anyway.

"If you stop and think how much has to be done you can go crazy," Shields said. "The best way I know of doing this is to put your head down, do what you have to do next and then do what's next on the list after that."

* Embrace the support of others

What Oklahoma City and Moore residents have already found out is that the country's heart is large. Joplin High's athletic department alone was inundated with kind gestures.

- Professional teams the Chiefs, Rams, Royals and Cardinals offered physical, emotional and financial support, as did NASCAR driver and former Joplin High student Jamie McMurray.

- Joplin softball players Mariah Sanders and Danielle Campbell got to throw out the first pitch at a Royals-Cardinals game.

- The next night in St. Louis, 18 Joplin baseball players took the field at Busch Stadium. The Major Leaguers wore Joplin caps they eventually signed and those were raffled off.

- The Missouri Basketball Coaches Association, through a Nike representative, donated a set of boys and girls uniforms.

- Local schools donated invaluable weights, uniforms and equipment from already dwindling resources.

- Starkweather received an envelope with $150 from a youth who worked a lemonade stand.

- A boy in Kansas City put on a wiffleball tournament and raised more than $1,000.

The list of do-gooders, small and large, was endless and overwhelming, Starkweather said. It has already been extended to Oklahoma.

Joplin residents Tuesday collected emergency supplies and money to provide shelter and other needs to Oklahoma tornado victims.

"The human spirit is alive and well," Starkweather said. "Not just in the Four State Area, but everywhere. All over the country. It's been amazing. Truly amazing." E-mail senior writer and columnist Mitch Stephens at mstephens@maxpreps.com or follow him on Twitter @MitchMashMax

Among ways to donate to Oklahoma City and Moore tornado victims

* Click here for the American Red Cross or contribute $10 by texting RED CROSS to 90999.
* Click here for the Salvation Army or contribute $10 by texting STORM to 80888. Or call 1-800-SAL-ARMY