Global Go Team Deploys to Joplin

Global Go Team is currently setting up a team to work in Joplin, Missouri on June 18th.

Joplin was devastated by a tornado that cut a path straight through the city on May 22nd. The death toll keeps rising, it seems, with every new article I read. I just read an article from The Baltimore Sun that cited 151 deaths. It's really terrible and this time the need is in our own backyard.

Global Go Team members will get to use their newly acquired training and certification by Greene County CERT (Community Emergency Response Teams). Much work will remain to be done over the course of the next couple of years.

I remember, vividly, the tornado that ripped through Stockton, MO back in 2003. The entire downtown area was flattened with the exception of the bank vault that never budged an inch. It was the first tornado that I tracked with the Internet. I had a game plan to take my then 3-year-old son into the bathroom with a mattress if it came towards us. Instead it traveled north of us. That tornado was an F3 and traveled 86 miles. In contrast, the tornado that hit Joplin only traveled 6 miles, but still managed to make high F4 status due to the sheer devastation of it.

So far, Global Go Team has taken me as far as 1,825 miles to Gressier, Haiti and now will be taking me a short 70 miles to Joplin, Missouri. I look forward to being able to help.

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