The Cellar Beneath the Farmhouse

When the tornado sirens screamed across Joplin, Missouri, on May 22, 2011, Mark Anderson grabbed his two daughters and ran for the cellar beneath his farmhouse. The EF5 tornado — the deadliest in decades — was already shredding the south side of town at two hundred miles per hour. Underground, Mark pressed his girls against the concrete wall, his body curved over theirs like a shield.…