Anyone live in/near Joplin, MO or have family in any of the tornado affected areas?

I have family in Oklahoma and talked to them about 3 hours ago and they were heading out to someones cellar. I hope they are safe.

No. I am in California, but, very tragic. Was watching some footage of the Oklahoma tornados at my dentist this afternoon. A wild week for everyone in those states, my heart goes out to them. :-(

“On Monday, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said that Congress would not approve funds for disaster relief without budget cuts elsewhere. “If there is support for a supplemental, it would be accompanied by support for having pay-fors to that supplemental,” he said.” source

Stay classy Republicans.

I have family that live a town or two over (who were not directly affected), but what grabs me about this story is my admittedly limited experience with the town. I stopped there briefly in September 2001 on my way to a wedding in Chicago. The town had a really lovely Mayberry-ish feel to it. Kids were playing and walking home from school, and I recall vaguely that the town had a river that was popular for tubing. It just felt remarkably wholesome and that really left an impression on me. So it’s difficult to hear and know that this tragedy was imposed upon what seems like such a good place.

2011 has been a shocking year for natural disasters. I hope all the people in tornado affected areas are okay and we see no more of those awful things this year.

I do not know anyone that lives in the area, fortunately. My heart goes out to the people of MO, what a terrible tragedy.

I belong to a group of people that survived a historic tornado in the 80’s here in my hometown. (I’ve told the story on Fluther many times before, but that particular tornado is my earliest memory). Anyhow, there are two people that survived the tornado here, that now live in or near Joplin, and both of them were lucky enough to be unaffected by the tornado.
The discussion came up because I posted photos of a tornado that I took from my front steps 2 days ago, and I shared them with the group. The irony was that the photos I took look eerily similar to the photos of the historic tornado. This one stopped early, but if it had continued it would have been the 3rd tornado to follow the exact same path through our city. It is definitely going to be a devastating storm season, I fear for people in the South over the warmer months that are coming.

@ANef_is_Enuf…Wow….what a startling photo! Unbelievable. Thanks for sharing that.

@johnpowell….. With all due respect, it’s not a Republican/Democrat thing about funding for disasters. Most people in disaster areas rarely see money from any disaster relief programs (which is maddening, but true.) And if the money is made available, the paperwork is so disastrously complicated, it makes it near impossible to file a claim. So, blaming the Republicans (and Dems for that matter) for dragging their feet on disaster funding and/or blocking it is beside the point.

Look at all the money for Katrina…and people are still living in trailers.

The lesson is this:
Do not rely on your government to save you…they won’t. Be as self-sufficient as possible and be prepared for emergency situations, especially if you live in areas that are prone to natural disasters (West Coast, New Madrid fault, Midwest, Gulf Coast).

The government money for disaster relief rarely gets to the people who need it the most.

And let’s be honest, these disasters are increasing in magnitude and number while our budget is in crisis…at some point, there will be too many disasters which will become much too overwhelming for the government to cope with anyway.

So…as a Girl Scout would say….Be prepared.

@DarlingRhadamanthus It’s easy to say to be as self-sufficient as possible and be prepared for emergenc situations, but the reality is that so many people are either poor or just squeeking by, living or barly living from payday to payday, how can lower income or even middle income people save for a disaster?

I just saw the video of that little dog ‘Mason’ that crawled home on two broken legs after being blown away, literally! Precious little darling! :-(