In June when school was out, I boarded a Greyhound bus from Baltimore heading west. I was heading to San Diego to run a marathon with my friends before I headed north to Vancouver to find a web developer for my site. But at the last minute, I decided to make a stop in Joplin. A EF-5 tornado tore through the heart of Joplin in late May, and they were in desperate need for relief and recovery.
A young woman, in her early 20’s sat a few rows behind me in a very rowdy bus where a couple boisterous dudes were cracking us up. The cracks were coming at a feverish pace which was exactly what we needed to establish the right mood for the long journey. One hooligan was getting fresh with this girl causing her to pitch a fit.
“Young lady, please get up and sit somewhere else then. The rest of you brats – if I hear another peep from you, I’m gonna pull over and drop ya’ll off on the side of the highway where you’re gonna have to thumb your way home,” the bus driver announced indignantly.
The ruckus subsided, but for the next few hours, I still didn’t get a lick of sleep. At the transfer in St Louis, I joined the other backpackers lounging on the floor. I was headed to Joplin for tornado relief – my body, my mind yearned for respite.
Suddenly my siesta was interrupted by a soft rendition of Keyshia Cole’s “Love”. She had a voice that could move mountains and a face that could launch a thousand trucks.
“Wow, you have an amazing voice!” I exclaimed.
“Thank you. Maybe my voice will make me rich and famous one day.”
“I certainly hope so. What’s your name so I’ll know to look you up some day.”
“Damaris. I’m heading to Ok City to visit my aunt.”
Then as I boarded the bus in St Louis, my bus driver declined to drop me off in Joplin, no matter how benevolent the reason. She gave me a hard time about not letting me offload my bike and told me that I would have to pick it up when we finally arrived in San Diego. That all got cleared up after explaining to the station manager and pleading with the bus driver after she ripped me a new one. Thankfully, the driver relented and I got off at Joplin to assist with the tornado relief. Meanwhile Damaris continued to Oklahoma City.
“Stay safe,” she said. “Hope to meet again some day.”
“Well, eventually, I’ll be heading west to find someone who can help me create a restaurant search engine. Maybe you can use it one day.”
There was no one to greet me, not even a soul on the street. It was a lonely Greyhound station in a mid-sized municipality, some parts showing virtually no sign that a deadly EF-5 Twister had rolled through only a week ago.
President Obama and his entourage had just visited and spoke in front of hundreds with Governor Nixon. Flags were flying in half mast. Emergency response vehicles and TV trucks filled up a parking lot at a mall. A National Guard hummer drove through the desolate downtown like it was in Iraq after the Battle of Ramadi.
Joplin is no sleepy Mayberry. There are malls there that rival Tyson’s Corner in Northern VA. Starbucks, Target, Sushi bars — all the popular retailers and chains you expect to see in any mid-American metropolis. I would have electricity and internet. But would I be able to bathe? It appears I would be approaching two days without a nice warm shower. Thankfully my Old Spice was saving me from smelling too musty.
Once on Main Street, I was so glad that I had brought along my Dahon foldable bike. This was a life saver and would be my only mode of travel.
The campus of Missouri Southern State University was four miles away and the temps were soaring past 90. I loaded all my luggage on the bike (Macbook Pro, Nikon 5100, sleeping bag, and yes only a few pieces of clothing) and pedaled my way to the Volunteer Relief Center.
My timing was flawless — I arrived just in time to listen to the final part of the St Louis AmeriCorps meeting, and I was enlisted to build a mock website that would aggregate tornado relief items.
The next day I visited the site ravaged by the tornado and met some of the victims. It had already been an amazing whirlwind tour in what has already been a very long journey for disaster relief for one of the deadliest single tornado in America.
The Joplin tornado remains the costliest single tornado in US history with damage estimated at $3.18 billion (adjusted for inflation). 553 businesses and 7,411 homes were damaged or destroyed affecting more than 17,000 people. The storm reached a maximum width of nearly one mile during its path through Joplin killing 158 people (with an additional eight indirect deaths).
After spending 5 days in Joplin, I continued west to rendezvous with my friend Janine and her husband, Jari. Back in December, I made a pact with them that I would visit them to run a marathon and they would do the same in DC.
Janine was a reporter for the San Diego Union Tribune and we were housemates in Coronado Island when I was stationed onboard the USS John C. Stennis. One of her favorite memories was flying off the deck of the carrier onboard a C-2 Greyhound as the ship left the San Diego harbor to the Persian Gulf shortly after 9/11.
We ran the San Diego Rock-n-Roll Marathon together and we were more concerned about meeting people and having fun then setting a PR . Then I continued north to see my friend Kelli her husband Jeff and their two sons.
I hadn’t seen Kelli since the early 90s while attending University of Florida in Gainesville.
“I need to tell you something,” Kelli whispered. “I’ll be going to see the Lord, and I’m very sad that I won’t be able to see my sons grow up and get married.”
“I’m very sorry. You’re an amazing woman, and I know that you will leave a great legacy for your family.”
I ran the Seattle Marathon for Kelli and was proud to present my two medals (Seattle and San Diego) to her sons.
“Your sons will be very proud to call you Mom!”
Then I hugged Kelli and her family goodbye and boarded a bus to Vancouver.
“See you in Heaven!”
When I arrived in Vancouver, the city was just recovering from the Stanley Cup Riots. The Canucks lost game seven to the Boston Bruins and a riot broke out near the Rogers Arena causing massive damage and injuries.
I had setup a meeting with Gregg Coppen of North Studio downtown.
“I want customers in Vancouver to be able to tell us their favorite dishes so that when they travel to San Diego or Washington, DC, we can make customized recommendations.”
“This is a complex project, and Drupal is the right tool. We can incorporate Apache Solr for the faceted search,” Greg suggested.
The rest of the team from North Studio loved my idea, but responded that the total cost would surpass $30,000.
“That’s too much. I’m a struggling MBA student,” I responded.
“What’s your budget?
“Less than half of that.”
When I was riding the Greyhound bus back to DC, I got a call from North Studio that they had accepted my offer. They liked my passion and wanted to build something of value that could be used coast to coast. To offset the costs, we would work together in building the site and of course, Kanita, Senodja and I would be responsible for adding the content.
“Amazing,” said Kanita. “You can’t find these rates in the DC area.”
“That’s why I had to travel 4,000 miles and back to find a well-rounded team who understood the front end just as well as the back end.”
A year later, Kanita and I were presenting at the George Washington University New Venture Competition. Although we didn’t advance to the semi-finals, the business school let us present because we won the “best restaurant app” in the Washington City Paper’s 2013 readers poll.
