RUSH: Joplin, Missouri. This is Dave. Great to have you on the program, sir. Hello.
CALLER: Hello. How are you?
RUSH: Very well, sir. How are you? That’s the question.
CALLER: I’m doing well compared to most people really. Me and my family, we were blessed, we were on the north end of town and just got a small amount of wind damage. The people that are downtown, they were the ones that really got hammered on.
RUSH: We’re told out here 75% of Joplin was leveled.
CALLER: I don’t believe I’d call it 75%. We’ve got FEMA in now. They’re estimating 8,000 structures. Now, they’re calling each single apartment in an apartment building a structure, too, so my guess would be somewhere around 3,000, 3,500 buildings, and probably a good 30 to 50% of the town got leveled.
RUSH: Well, that’s significant. Gotta rebuild half a town, I mean that’s major.
CALLER: Yeah, it is major. The tornado, the path itself actually went right down one of the main east-west thoroughfares and —
RUSH: We’ve all seen the pictures. We can’t believe it. We’ve seen the before-after stills. We have seen the video of the aftermath. Believe me. You don’t see this kind of damage in hurricanes. It’s just amazing.
CALLER: I haven’t seen anything quite like this ever. I was fortunate enough where I was able to assist and help out by hauling water into a homestead after Andrew hit, I helped out a little bit in western Kansas here and there in a couple of tornadoes. I’ve seen the pictures of Tuscaloosa, but I gotta admit I’ve never seen a six mile track through a town like this before, ever.
RUSH: Yeah. Well, all’s not lost. The president’s coming in Sunday.
CALLER: Oh, yeah, I think that will be interesting. That’s kind of why I called. I was wondering if we could get a Republican in for a counter point.
RUSH: You ever thought of changing the name of the city to New Orleans?
CALLER: Hey, that’s a good thought.
RUSH: Of course you’d give it a lot of attention that way, but there’s still I’m told 1,500 people still unaccounted for in Joplin.
CALLER: From the reports I’m getting over our local radio that’s about right.
RUSH: What’s the population of Joplin?
CALLER: The population of Joplin’s about 49,000, and we do have around 1,500 still that’s unaccounted for. I think it’s just amazing the death toll is only 122 after seeing the damage. The rescue efforts are still going on. They’ll probably go on for another day or two. They’re starting to get ready to switch into cleanup, though, and I’m sure they’ll find more then. But for the most part it looks like everybody’s doing pretty good all things considered.
RUSH: That’s amazing. Did you hear that? Everybody’s doing good, all things considered. That’s where I’m from, folks. That’s that heartland attitude, attitude that makes the country work. All things considered, everybody’s doing okay, everybody doing pretty good. Reminds me of the Donner party. The Donner party on their way in to California, they couldn’t get to the casinos. (laughing) There weren’t any. The Sierra Nevada. They resorted to cannibalism. They got stuck in a bad winter, snow and so forth. And they found a diary, journals. And the reference to the weather was, “It’s an unusually cold winter,” and that was it. That was it. The reality of it was what it was, they faced it, cannibalism was required to stay alive. It was an unusually cold winter. Here these guys in Joplin are saying, “Well, all things considered, everybody’s doing pretty good.” That amazes me. Appreciate the call, Dave.
Scott in Billings, Montana. You’re next, EIB Network, hello, sir.
CALLER: Thanks, Rush. Mega dittos. I’m here in Yellowstone County. I don’t think it’s made the national news in any way, but we’re underwater here, and just rain and runoff from snow melt and so on. And it’s not typical; it’s unusual. And our county disaster director was on TV last night, and I’m paraphrasing here, but he essentially said, “Help yourself, help your neighbors, help old people,” and that was it. There was no promise of help from him or the feds or anybody else.
RUSH: He wasn’t talking about looting, was he?
CALLER: (laughing) No, no. No help yourself. No, not in that regard, no. He was just saying take care of your own business. No, there’s no looting in Montana. You’ll end up on the wrong end of a barrel in that deal. So just quite the contrast. And obviously Joplin’s a completely different issue here, but just no one’s looking for the government. No one’s saying, “Hey where’s the president, where’s Biden?” or where’s anybody else. It’s cover your own tail and help your neighbor.
RUSH: I know. It’s self-reliance, self-reliance, damn right, and you gotta know, there are people in this audience smirking at that. “Oh, yeah, easy for you to say.” Well, it is. I appreciate it.
END TRANSCRIPT
*Note: Links to content outside RushLimbaugh.com usually become inactive over time.