This article was made by KOMU, an NBC affiliate based in Columbia, MO. Five years after this article was made, an EF5 tornado would tear through Joplin, killing over 160 and causing $2.8B ($3.6B in 2024) in damage. It would be the costliest tornado in US history and the deadliest since the 1947 Woodward, OK tornado.
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These buses only service a stop every 45 minutes (and every 1½ hours Saturday), which means you gotta schedule your day around them. It's really annoying, and missed buses or delays can mean a missed appointment. It only runs Monday-Saturday 7am-7pm, meaning it's not useful for anyone except people who work a 9-5 downtown, live within a five minute walk of a stop, don't have a car, and don't work on Sundays. Also, the coverage is garbage. It's hot this morning, and I just rode my bike over a mile to the nearest stop, so I'm super sweaty now.
Whats worse is that it used to run several hundred feet from my dad's, but they reduced it back in 2019 to just these six routes. It's gonna get worse in August as well, as they're cutting three routes. They're combining routes, so the 1½ hour thing they do on Saturday is gonna happen every day. It's a kick in the nuts to everyone who can't drive in this putrid car-centric wasteland.
I'm glad they're not dead. Rattlers eat rodents and are way more beneficial than they are dangerous.