Photos from Oklahoma by Marcus DiPaola
Last week, friend and colleague Marcus DiPaola called in to The Shannyn Moore Show to give his report from the ground in Oklahoma in the hours after the devastating tornados hit. You can listen to the podcast of that night’s show here.
Marcus DiPaola is a photo-journalist with the Xinhua News Agency, based on the east coast You’ve probably seen his photos as he’s been published on internationally on Buzzfeed, Charlotte Observer, Latino Times, Forbes, The Star-Ledger, dozens of Chinese papers, and on The Discovery and Weather Channels.
Below are a handful of heart-breaking shots he shared with us.
A week ago NW ioway was pounded with 7 plus inches of rain. My home town of Cherokee had floodwaters in places I have never seen floodwaters. One house just north of town near a creek was knocked off its foundation Since it is not in a flood zone,homeowners were told they didn’t need flood insurance. Never flooded that high ever. Insurancwe company came right out and claimed an act of god and said they weren’t liasble through homeowner’s insurance. Is “an act of god” provable in court? Do tornado victims get the same B.S. from insurance companies? Is there any hope for mankind?
http://homeownersinsuranceguide.flash.org/knowyourchoices.htm
Been wondering the same thing. Looked round some – this one is super basic. Sounds like tornados can be covered.
http://normantranscript.com/new/x2026368628/Defining-the-debris-removal-process-for-insured-tornado-victims
This one was very interesting. Looks like folks without coverage have some options in current situation.
Your flood dealie is something else. The AofG thing has good and bad sides. Sounds like the bad side is going to hurt your neighbors. I am so sorry.
http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/act+of+God This is funny-one time insurance companies get religion. Pick on Atheists. The Vatican says no heaven for Atheists. If you don’t believe in a god your insurance company gets to rip you off. Least they are consistent. Back when Trebt Lott was Senate majority leader,his vacation home suffered hurricane/flood damage and his insurance wouldn’t cover that act of god. Snicker,snicker.
snicker, snicker
indeed
😉
I have just heard from a friend in Oklahoma City. She volunteered to go down to give tetanus shots and was saying, however bad it looks in pictures, on the ground it was hard to believe anything had ever been built there at all. She just wandered about sticking people until she ran out of consent forms and had to go back and get more.
Before all the people lived out on the prairie, tornadoes came thru, ripped up some corn, wheat, a house or two. Generations have been raised throughout the region knowing the threat exists. I was born & raised in tornado country and learned early about the color of the sky when threats were nearby. The smell of ozone, flashes of lightening like instant daylight, the bone shaking cracks of thunder will always be a part of me. I vividly remember driving thru north central Indiana a day after storms went thru the area, lifting silos, leaving scattered corn husks, toppling gravestones.
As we have learned in subsequent years the storms seem more ferocious, probably are, and more people and development is in their paths. The images and stories are tragedy personalized a thousand fold. As our world continues to develop, changing the topography, the temperature, the meteorological basis of forecasting, it seems to me that we (as a resident) need to get smarter about where we live, and why we live in that place. Or better, is there anywhere without risk? No. The nature of risk and loss are the more thoughtful consideration.
Just sayin’. n
I have no measure for a tornado, esp one this big.
Earthquakes, floods, storms with winds over 100mph- I do.
This, no.
I can’t even quite process what I’m seeing in the photos here and elsewhere of this event
Time to go look at what Red Cross is doing and how to help there.
Alaska Pi, the Red Cross is the last place I’d donate money. IMO (and that of many others), they’re looking for photo ops for RC volunteers, not to help. RC collected zillions in donations after Hurricane Sandy, and it was on yesterday’s news that they distributed virtually NONE of it here (NYC & environs). Same thing after the World Trade Center came down.
There are many worthwhile charities that put boots on the ground and help people. The Methodists, for example, have been helping in OK since the end of the storm. Health and peace.
Thanks for the caution Zyx, RC here does well but that is not necessarily so elsewhere.
Will go look round some at other charities.