One year later, Joplin is rebuilding

May 22 will mark the one-year anniversary of the devastating EF-5 tornado that ravaged the city of Joplin, MO. The May 22 storm damaged or destroyed 553 businesses, affecting nearly 5,000 jobs. Today, the effort to rebuild Joplin is buzzing and 446 of those businesses have reopened, returning about 3,000 Joplin residents to work.

A press release from the non-profit Missouri Partnership delivers the good news:

The speed of the recovery is not the most remarkable feat for the community—what makes Joplin exceptional is the commitment businesses made to continue to operate and pay their employees even before the community took the first agonizing steps toward recovery. In the hours following the storm, several of Joplin’s largest employers promised to keep their employees on the payroll and many businesses quickly set up temporary space to continue critical operations.

“The Joplin business community made an extraordinary effort not only to rebuild and reopen as quickly as possible, but also to support their employees in a time of need.” Says Rob O’Brian, president of the Joplin Area Chamber of Commerce.

Last May, Coca-Cola was nearing the end of a lengthy process to purchase a building in Joplin’s industrial park for an expansion. After the tornado, it was evident that large spaces were needed for temporary schools to minimize the disruption to students. Rather than complete their purchase, Coca-Cola worked closely with the Joplin Chamber of Commerce to give their intended facility to Joplin Schools—the temporary school opened on time last fall in state-of-the-art facilities. Coca-Cola is still planning to expand in the area, more than doubling the number of jobs at the Joplin facility.

“Coca-Cola has been a member of the Joplin community for well over 100 years,” says Drew Heenan, Market Unit Vice President of Coca-Cola Refreshments. “In the weeks following the tornado, the citizens and volunteers in Joplin rallied together to rebuild the community. We made the decision to put our plans on hold and offer the site for our new distribution center to the Joplin schools. It’s exciting to see how much progress has been made in Joplin over the course of the last year. We are just as excited to break ground on our new facility in the coming weeks, and we hope to call Joplin home for another 100 years.” [...]

The tenacity, work ethic and commitment that were displayed after Joplin’s historic tornado are the foundation for building successful businesses and communities. And it's something the "Show-Me" state of Missouri is well known for. Before the May 22nd tornado, there was no good way to measure Missouri’s “can-do” spirit. One year later, the numbers tell the story, with more than 80 percent of affected businesses restored and new companies coming on board all the time.

This drive to succeed is inherent in people in this part of the country. Let a tornado slow them down? No way. That’s not the way they do things in Joplin, Missouri.

The Missouri Partnership receives public and private funding from the Hawthorn Foundation – a nonprofit, nonpartisan, statewide organization that works with public and private efforts to increase Missouri’s economic development.