Photographers Blog

By Eric Thayer

More than three months ago, a massive tornado ripped through Joplin, Missouri, killing almost 160 people and destroying nearly 8,000 homes and businesses. For a week the story garnered national and international attention. A community of 50,000 people was thrust into the spotlight.

Images of destruction dominated newspapers and newscasts. Stories were told, lives shown fragmented, a bruised and battered community rallied, despite being in a collective state of shock. Then, slowly, as the pools of rainwater dried up, the residents dug through the deep wound cut a mile wide into the landscape, picking out pieces of their shattered lives. Slowly the attention faded, though work quietly continued.

Almost three months later, I returned to Joplin to get a sense of where the community had come since the tornado. The wounds are healing. But they are healing slowly. Most of the residents have left the damaged areas, much of the debris has been removed, and although there is still much to be taken away, whole blocks have been cleared, leaving only the occasional foundation. Most of the work crews are gone; there is an occasional home under construction, but there aren’t many.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has built trailer parks on land next to an airport, about 20 minutes from the bulk of the destruction in a small piece of Joplin that juts into Webb City to the north. Stark white trailers on gravel streets, with beige interiors and blasting air conditioners are now home for many residents. They are allowed to live there rent-free for 18 months.

I spent some time with a couple and their son. The woman said she had returned two days earlier from California after battling cancer and winning; at 26. They had lost their apartment, and a representative of FEMA was there with papers to sign. He handed over the keys to their new home, and some semblance of normalcy began to return to their lives.

May 1, 2011

I’m on a plane from Los Angeles to JFK. About an hour before we touch down, the word goes out that the U.S. military has found and killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. I land, make a few frames at baggage claim of people watching television while I wait for my bag. Then it’s talk my way to the front of a very long taxi line and make my way to Times Square and the site of the former World Trade Center towers, which many now refer to as Ground Zero. I notice an air of celebration.

People are cheering, waving American flags. There is quite a bit of media. I wonder what this must look like to the rest of the world, here we are celebrating the killing of a man. True, he came to represent the war against terror in the United States, but it seemed to be a celebration of death, at a place that had come to symbolize the death of many at the hands of extremists. Remembering the scenes of some burning American flags and cheering after the attacks of September 11, 2001, and the outrage it caused, I make pictures of the scene. This is a historic milestone in a war that had begun nearly ten years earlier, and this is a turning point in the psyche of America.

Less than 24 hours later, I’m behind a barricade at the Met Gala, an event that is on par with some of the more high profile celebrity events in the United States. It’s sort of an Oscars for the East Coast, with a high level of star participation. But it’s a grueling parade of celebrities, all walking past a long line of photographers. There is Beyonce in a dress that rendered her nearly unable to walk up the stairs, there are Tom and Gisele, there is Rhianna, and there is the last minute arrival of Madonna.