MPs traveling to Joplin to provide aid

Friday, May 27, 2011
Members of the Missouri National Guard's 1139th Military Police Company from Harrisonville were forming to get back on the road to Joplin after re-fueling in Nevada Thursday afternoon. They had been assigned to help secure the tornado-stricken city.

Declaring themselves ready to put a stop to looting and enhance security at the tragic, other-worldly scene of Joplin tornado devastation, 100 members of the Missouri National Guard's 1139th Military Police Company stopped in Nevada to refuel Thursday afternoon.

With 18 Army green and sand-colored Humvees and two troop trucks, the southbound convoy rolled off U.S. 71 Highway at about 2 p.m. and spent a half-hour at the Phillips 66 Fuel Mart on North Austin Boulevard, where 1st Sgt. Jason Walling of Jefferson City said many of the Guardsmen had been heavily involved in Mississippi River flood relief in Southeast Missouri for weeks when they volunteered to go to Joplin.

Walling said his Harrisonville-based company would support the Joplin-based 203rd Engineers Battalion, which is already working to rebuild the Jasper and Newton County city of some 50,000 people.

Missouri National Guard Sgt. 1st Class Tammy DeHerrera of Lamar, left, 1st Sgt. Jason Walling of Jefferson City and Sgt. 1st Class William Gifford of Harrisonville confer outside the Fuel Mart while 20 military police vehicles are refueled Thursday.

"These are top notch soldiers who wanted to help those people out down there," Walling said. "We'll be doing patrols because we understand there is some looting going on.

"Our mission is to provide a safe and secure environment."

Slamming into southwest Joplin between 5:35 and 5:41 p.m., Sunday, and tearing eastward, the "multiple vortex" EF-5 twister was a mile wide when it reached maximum force in the Range Line Road business corridor between 13th and 32nd streets, according to references.

The Missouri State Emergency Management Agency said Thursday that at least 125 people were killed and more than 900 injured. The Missouri Department of Public Safety reported 232 still missing, although not all those were believed dead or trapped.

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