What if.
This past Tuesday I visited Moore, Oklahoma. For those of you that may not be aware, on May 20th, 2013, Moore, OK was devastated by a tornado that lasted 39 minutes, touched down for 17 miles, and was 1.3 miles wide (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Moore_tornado). For people like myself that live in a place that has never seen a disaster like a tornado or hurricane, 1.3 miles wide - 2.1 km for all my Canadians, that's unthinkable.
I wanted to visit Moore. Mostly because seeing is believing and I want to try and understand what this community has gone through. Step into their community and see what they saw. I started by looking up the Moore Tornado online and in order to find an exact location that I could punch into my GPS I looked at an aerial map that came up as a result of my search. I threw in the only address I could see and was on my way.
As I pulled into Moore, I could see the main road is now lined with brand new, beautifully built shops like Target and dining options like McDonalds. I was starting to second-guess that I was in the right spot. But then the GPS told me to take a right. And I did. Within seconds I was driving past houses that had clearly been completely rebuilt in the last six and a half months. Then I passed one that had not been touched since the damage struck. Then I begun passing what looked like empty lots. But after closer inspection, you realized that the only thing that survived of these lots were the drive ways. The 20 feet or so of concrete that once directed a family into their home, was all that survived the destruction.
Then the GPS said to take a left. What I turned into hit me like nothing I've ever felt before. I had pulled up to what had, prior to May 20th, 2013, been Plaza Towers Elementary School. If it wasn't for the sign bolted into the ground, I wouldn't have known it's name. But the memorial that sit upon the grass, left to what was once the drive-way entrance to the school lets you know that a school once stood here.
Seven crosses. Seven piles of toys, flowers, cards, and trinkets. To mark seven lives lost. Seven children. Ripped from seven families. Accompanied by two flags. Attached to the fence behind each cross is a piece written by a member of each of the seven families that lost a child on May 20, 2013. They tell of who their children were - the one with the big heart, the one that was proud of being taller than her big sister, the one that asked for extra lunch money so that he could buy items for his friends that may not have a lunch, and the one that wouldn't get to celebrate her upcoming birthday. Seven re-tellings of lives lost that can be summarized as nothing short of heartbreaking.
Then I come back to the messages of what if. Seven families that struggled on that day on what to do. One mom wrote of the decision of whether to risk going out in the storm to pick up her daughters from school - but chose not to at the risk of making her girls orphans. A what if that is absolutely haunting.
As the foundation gets replaced and the walls, one by one, are (rather rapidly) rebuilt around Plaza Towers Elementary School, these seven families stand together with a message: SOS - Shelter Our Schools. What if? What if Plaza Towers Elementary School had had a proper storm shelter in place?
They don't want this to ever be another what if. And they are taking action.
To these seven families, the sixteen others that lost their lives, the hundreds that were injured, and those who lost it all - my thoughts and admiration are with you, for how you have come together to over come such devastation that, to someone like me - from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada - is absolutely unimaginable.
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