MORAN — For the second time in five years, Lannette Wood found her life shattered by history.
Wood wasn’t home late in the afternoon of May 22 when a massive tornado blasted its way through Joplin, killing 160 people and destroying thousands of homes and apartments — including hers.
The 39-year-old Wood was on the north edge of town — out of the storm’s path — as her apartment near the intersection of Connecticut and 20th streets was reduced to rubble.
“It was pretty evident that the apartment was gone,” Wood recalled, as she drove her car through a labyrinth of downed tree limbs, debris and electric lines in the twister’s wake.
She eventually was turned away by police, and wasn’t allowed back to her apartment for two days, where her fears were confirmed.
“There was nothing left,” she said.
All of her clothes, household items and personal keepsakes were missing, literally blown away in the wind.
Two items in particular were most stressing. Wood kept all of her important financial information in a lock box. Even worse was a folded American flag.
The flag carries a special place in Wood’s heart. It was given to her at her husband, John’s funeral. John Wood, a member of the Kansas National Guard’s 891st Engineer Battalion, was killed by a roadside bomb in 2006.
“That’s all that I really wanted to get back,” she said. “Everything else could be replaced.”
WOOD HEARD the tornado warning broadcast over the radio as she drove her car through north Joplin, a cause for alarm but not panic.
A native Kansan, she had lived through her share of severe storms.
“It was when they said they spotted the tornado on the ground in Joplin that I pulled over,” she said.
Wood sought refuge at a convenience store near Joplin’s airport, on the northernmost edge of town. The skies were dark and rain was falling, but Wood still figured it was still a typical storm.
The first sign that all was not normal came while Wood was still waiting for the all-clear as texts started coming in from friends, checking on her well-being.
