Today started on a good note.
Jon & I made our way to IHOP for flapjack breakfast. After a good feast, we made our way back to camp, assembled our kit and made our way once again to Picher. Walking through the shell of a vibrant mining centre, which at one point had over 25,000 residents, I felt the perversion of my craft. When you photograph places where people are still picking up the pieces of a fresh wound, it almost feels like a nagging guilt for not having been there through the storm.
I’ve gotten over that feeling now, thanks to the kindness and warm hearts of these resilient midwesterners.
I spoke with Mike McAteer, a Peterborough, Ontario native whose career took him through Chicago, Dallas, and now Picher. The EPA has spent close to 140,000,000 in a cleanup which saw lead (PB) blood levels drop 40% in 6 years, removed contaminated land, and failed to dyke & reroute the sulfuric mill water which rises up through sinkholes from the nearly 80 years of intense underground mining which took place between 1890-1970. We visited the Neosho River, which runs into the Tar Creek River near route 69. The riverbanks are rust-coloured from the chemical reaction leaving Iron Oxide on anything that’s exposed to the water.
Today we met quite possibly the highest-spirited survivor of all: Corky Henry. He’s a big OU football fan. Like, BIG fan. This man has every piece of memorabilia ever released for this football team dating back to the 1940’s, even the doll he’s pictured here with is from the 1950’s; it shouts out “Beat Texas!” when you pull its drawstring! He’s even had items custom-made to his specifications, including a Tiffany stained glass lantern with the all-time best all-round QB’s name on it. He says it cost him more than 3,200 dollars. He’s a fairly old gentleman, and his speech is slurred on account of a tracheotomy. He still suffers from throat cancer to this day. After a thorough tour of his house (just “not my garage”), some good laughs, and some even better stories of Picher in its’ heyday; we parted ways with a gift that he made himself, OU team piggy banks.
Thanks for the good memories, Corky!
As our walk continued, we met another chap from town named Stan Boyer who was having some trouble relocating steel poles about 10′ long. We gave him some assistance & started to chat. Turns out that he came here when he was 5 years old from Berkeley, CA and has lived here for over 60 years. He tells us about what he saw during the storm “I was watching from Miami with some binoculars, and I saw six funnels over there.” He points to a spot where the last place to buy milk & bread used to be, then starts to gaze off into the distance with a glassy look in his eyes, that’s when I got the shot you see in today’s gallery. After we got him squared away, we started chatting & after a spell, the question came.
“So what now, Stan?”
“I’mma gon’ have to pack mah bags & get back out west, then!”
Picher is dying, and I feel like I’m here shooting the eulogy.
-
- Paul from FEMA is checking airborne particulate matter
-
- Remnants from Eagle-Picher’s mining operations
0 Responses to “Tornado Aftermath day 2 – Picher, oklahoma”