84 Lumber makes efforts to rebuild
Joplin, Missouri

Transcript of video:

84 LUMBER JOPLIN, Missouri – BUILD ON WHAT WE KNOW

John Joines: It’s hard for me to tell you what street we’re on right now, because as the tornado hit all of the street signs were destroyed and ever since that day for the last 10 months. We’ve just all been driving up and down the streets that literally have no name. We lost 161 people and we had about anywhere from 1,000 to 1,500 that were actually injured. So we feel as though we were blessed because the numbers could have been 10 times that. There is a tremendous rebuilding effort going on. We lost 8,000 housing units as well as 500 businesses and at this particular time we’ve issued over 4,800 building permits to rebuild those houses that were either destroyed or severely damaged.

John Hinman: This was an apartment complex that was not a direct hit of the tornado but just about a block away. We got a lot of the wrap around wind damage from the tornado that went through in the Spring of 2011. We’ve had to replace 15 of the 22 buildings and then a significant rehab on the remainder of the buildings here in Joplin. We’ve chosen to partner with 84 Lumber because really when you have the material and labor for a scope like the framing and sheeting on the exterior of the building, it really creates a seamless product. It has really taken the burden off of us as the general contractor. Really to have to worry about over runs on material and really 84 Lumber has done a great job of being able to meet the schedule, and really not had any issues with the material change orders or anything of that nature.

Wes Thompson: 84 came here shortly after the tornado happened on May 22^nd; a few of us came down. We established that we could help because no matter what the competition is here in Joplin, there just can’t be enough. One lumberyard or two lumberyards or three lumberyards can’t do what needs to be rebuilt in this city. So we started to look for places where we could call home and we were lucky enough to find this 2-1/2-acre piece of ground that we’re on today. We don’t have a walk-in- traffic-presence. We don’t have a huge overhead expense to try to help immediately with what’s going on here in Joplin. So we’re able to get a piece of ground, get material on the ground, get labor sources around us and go to work pretty quickly.

David Crook: With all the construction that’s going on in this town, materials are not in a great supply. With the other trades you get in the sheet rock, HVC, electrical….the lead time for their material is at least three weeks. And with 84 Lumber we can call and they’ve already got it here because they don’t have to wait for the other trades and the other companies to get here. It’s all delivered right here to the project. One phone call and there it is.

John Hinman: I think it’s been great. It’s been very seamless. Obviously, when you start with your first building there’s a lot of questions and answers to get worked out. But we set a two week schedule for each four-plex and they cruise right along. They’ve been great guys to work with. We haven’t had any problems at all.

Wes Thompson: 84 coming to Joplin is all from a learning experience of other disasters that we’ve taken part in to try to help communities to recover. Down in Louisiana after Katrina hit we hurried up down there and tried to get our stores up and running and built facilities to help with that rebuilding process. And here, we’ve tried to come in and get things up and running as quickly as possible with minimal expense and yet be able to still service the customer and the builder’s need for what they need to take care of the workload that is ahead of them and with the other disasters that happened after this in Indiana and Kentucky, with the tornadoes there. We hope to be able to take this same model, you know, phase II from what we learned from Katrina and what we’ve learned here in Joplin and be able to maybe take that to West Liberty, KY and be able to do the same things there.