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COLUMBIA — Members of MU's Delta Tau Delta fraternity were among the first to offer help to the victims of Sunday’s deadly tornado.
Fifteen university juniors, seniors and alumni headed to Joplin on Monday night with $1,500 worth of relief items. Some planned to stay through the weekend, with others looking to join the effort next week.
- MU Delta Tau Delta fraternity members Charlie Landis, left, and Seth Alden work on Thursday to clean up wreckage left behind after an EF5 tornado ripped through the town on Joplin on Sunday. Fifteen members of the fraternity left Columbia on Monday to head towards Joplin to help with relief efforts.
- While taking a short break from volunteering in Duquesne, a town just east of Joplin, MU Delta Tau Delta members Charlie Landis, Patrick Wolff and Ben Courtois eat breakfast sandwiches provided by volunteers. They noted that while working, volunteers have offered food and water every 5 to 10 minutes.
Volunteer Seth Alden said the work has included picking up shingles, sheet rock and other debris, nailing plywood over windows to prevent looting, delivering generators and flood lights and helping people salvage belongings.
“There’s a lot of our university family here,” said Delta Tau Delta President Patrick Wolff. “It’s really nice to be able to come down and help those … families, help our own state.”
The men said they were moved to action when they heard about the destruction from friends. After spending two days working in Joplin, they agreed that pictures of the aftermath do not do it justice.
“It’s hard to fathom that people were actually able to … ride out the storm and survive it,” Wolff said. “As we’re going down the road, I’m just thinking, there’s no way. I have no idea. It kind of makes you appreciate maybe a little bit more the severity that some of these storms can cause.”
Fraternity member Charlie Landis recalled one sobering moment.
“I saw this older man get out of the car,” Landis said, “and he just looked at his family who was helping move stuff out and just started bawling, and they all came up and group hugged for a while. And all you could hear is this guy crying, and that was kind of eye-opening for me.”
Landis said going to Joplin was about providing the assistance he would hope for if he found himself in a similar situation.
“I’ve never been through anything like this, but if I was, then I would love if someone came in and helped me,"Landis said. "So I’m gonna do the same thing for them.”
Missourian reporter Eliza Smith contributed to this report.
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