When the Lights Came Back to Joplin

On May 22, 2011, a mile-wide EF5 tornado carved through Joplin, Missouri, reducing entire neighborhoods to bare foundations. Where homes and schools once stood, there was nothing but splintered wood, twisted metal, and silence. Residents described the aftermath as a void — no landmarks, no streetlights, no way to tell where one block ended and another began. The familiar world had become formless and unrecognizable.…