Crew Rebuilding Joplin Hospital Salvage Trees

The crews rebuilding a tornado-damaged Joplin hospital are trying to save as many trees as possible from the site where a new building is being constructed.

St. John’s Mercy Hospital in Joplin was virtually destroyed in the May 22 twister that killed 161 people in the southwest Missouri community. The twister also stripped thousands of trees of their limbs, killing them.

That’s why officials have been so committed to salvaging trees at the site of the new permanent hospital, three miles away.

Officials with the parent company for the hospital, Mercy, say more than 470 saplings have been dug up and moved to a tree farm in nearby Aurora. The goal is to move 400 of them back to the site of the new hospital when construction is completed.