JOPLIN, Mo. - It was a clear spring day when Hana Lasseter attended her high school graduation ceremony last May.
Then the ceremony was dismissed, and the skies turned black. A tornado was gathering to the west.
A mile wide at its peak, the May 22 tornado cut a swath through the southwestern Missouri town in about half an hour, causing 160 deaths, almost 1,000 injuries and more than $2 billion in damages. By the time it cleared, it left 8,000 homes and buildings damaged or destroyed.
Lasseter, who grew up in Warsaw and moved to Joplin with her family two years ago, recently recounted the tense drive home in the minutes before the tornado touched down. She was with her father, former Warsaw pediatrician Dr. Dean Lasseter.
“It was windy, the stop lights were out, the power was out,” she said in a phone interview. “It was hailing and raining as we got home. Then, four minutes later, it hit.”
Their home was left untouched, though nearby St. John’s Regional Medical Center was heavily damaged, along with surrounding neighborhoods. Her high school – luckily, too small to host the ceremony – was destroyed.
“If we were all in the high school, a lot of us wouldn't have made it out,” she said. “The area around the high school got flattened.”
Her family was unable to leave their home for a few days. When they did venture out, she said, what they saw “was like a war zone” – trees gone, buildings torn to pieces, people walking around trying to find family members.
Hana and older brother David Lasseter joined teams of volunteers picking up debris. She recalled one day stumbling onto a box of personal items that had been hurled into a field, and returning it to its owner.
“He was crying. It was something so special to him,” she said.
She also volunteered with the animal shelter, helping find homes for some of the nearly 1,000 pets rescued after the tornado. The shelter saw 400 pets adopted in one day, during a free adoption event, and she said lost animals are still turning up.
A highlight for Lasseter was volunteering with ABC’s “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition,” which rebuilt seven homes in one week in October. The episode, the series’ 200th and final, aired Jan. 13 and is available to watch on ABC’s website (shortcut URL: tinyurl.com/EMHEJoplin).
Joplin residents chose the families whose homes were rebuilt, which included one of the first firefighters to respond to the disaster, and several parents who lost children. The show also saw the rebuilding of a local park.
“Hearing the stories, I think they chose them because the stories are meaningful for other people,” Lasseter observed.
She joined the moving crews, unloading trucks full of furniture and opening boxes. The ambitious schedule meant often working until dusk, and sometimes all night.
Lasseter, who is currently attending Crowder College in Webb City, Mo., and plans to study acting, said Joplin is still recovering. St. John’s hospital is still shuttered, and stores are slowly reopening.
“Everyone’s calling it the new Joplin now,” she said. “It’s on track, it’s slowly coming along.”
She added thanks for everyone who has helped the town recover.
“We wouldn’t be able to get back on track otherwise,” she said. “Something like this brings the whole entire world together.”
