This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories, and we tell stories about everything here on this show, including your stories. Send them to OurAmerican Stories.com. That's Our American Stories.com. They're some of our

favorites. On May 22nd, 2011, the city of Joplin, Missouri was decimated by the costliest tornado

in American history. It took 162 lives and injured thousands. The tornado left a permanent scar on the Joplin community.

Joplin has now since rebuilt in a magnificent way, but the scar, well, it remains.

Here to tell the story of loss and love in Joplin is former KSNF Channel 16 meteorologist

Jeremiah Cook and current KSNF Channel 16 meteorologist Jeremiah Cook

and current KSNF reporter Gretchen Bolander.

Here's Jeremiah.

As far as who I am, I'm a Southwest Missouri farm boy.

I love Southwest Missouri.

I am convinced that when the work of saving

humanity is done and God retires, he is going to retire in Southwest Missouri. There's just no

place like it on earth. I think that's part of what made it so much fun to be a journalist

and a weather anchor here was I was getting a chance to tell the stories

and predict the weather for my family, for the people I grew up with. This was not just another

place to work, this was my home. My wife used to joke that I was married to her, but the weather was my mistress.

And honestly, I guess that kind of was true.

I loved the problem of trying to figure out what the weather was going to do.

You know, when you look at the news desk, there's four people on the news desk.

Three of them are telling you what has already happened, and one of them is trying to figure out what's going to happen.

I wanted to be that guy that was trying to outsmart Mother Nature, if you will.

The day of the Joplin tornado, on one hand, it was the best day.

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