To experience firsthand how the insurance industry is respondingto the tornado that took out a large swath of Joplin, Mo. on May22—the EF5's path through the city was nearly a mile wide and about7 miles long—I “embedded” on June 7 with State Farm Insurance,spending the day with a local agent, two catastrophe claimsrepresentatives and an auto-lines specialist so I could witness thecompany's concerted response to the devastating storm that leftmore than 150 dead and 1,000 injured.

In the accompanying video, you'll see footage that shows justhow extensive and intense the damage was. We also visited with aState Farm agent who has been active in Joplin for 25 years; and wewent onsite to a policyholder's home that had been leveled by thestorm with two dedicated catastrophe-claims specialists.

In addition to the video, the text below offers some impressionsof what I saw and heard during my time in Joplin.

Buddy System Averts “Meltdown”
“I'm sure I would have had a meltdown by now if I had not had thehelp of those State Farm partners,” says Karen Rutledge, State Farmagent, in describing the impact of State Farm's “Buddy System,”where agents in unaffected areas offer their help to theircolleagues in the center of the storm. “I could not have providedthe service I wanted to provide if I hadn't had that help. Theseare agents who are willing to walk away from their office and theway they make a living to come and help somebody else.”

The agents, many with claims experiences, were there to greetthe “overwhelming” influx of policyholders. Not only were thesebuddies helping to write advance checks—they even set up agenerator for Rutledge so when she arrived back from Chicago themorning after the tornado struck, “my team had power to operate thecomputers, take calls, help all the people coming in.”

Bathtub Refuge
Asked about some of the stories that most stuck out amidst all theturmoil and trauma, Rutledge says, “There's just been so manypeople that were actually in their homes—nothing left—and I askedthem where they were in the home and over and over I have heard itwas the bathtub. Word has gotten out over the years that the safestroom in your house is possibly the bathroom. So many stories ofpeople riding out the storm in their bathtub and that being allthat was left and not even in the same place in the house—maybe itwas in the yard. It's just amazing, seriously, that there were notmore [fatalities].”

Seconding what Rutledge says about the tub, Steve Simpson, acatastrophe field claims representative for State Farm, talkedto a young married couple renting a house who got in the tub at thelast second, pulled a mattress over them, “and they ended up twohouses down, still in the bathtub, and the husband's truck ended upwhere the bathtub used to be.” (Hear more of this story in thevideo.)

Tech & The Tornado
Both Rutledge and the catastrophe claims reps I met with pointedout how much the technology they use has changed when responding tosuch events.

Claims reps now bring with them aerial photos of apolicyholder's property when they go to evaluate damages, whichthey use to help make sure their measurements onsite are asaccurate as possible.

And a device as ubiquitous as the digital camera has made a bigdifference, too, says Jasmine Coleman, another State Farmcatastrophe field claims representative with whom I toured atotaled home. The digital approach gives them an opportunity toboth see the photos immediately—and take vastly more than theycould in the (not-too-recent) days when they carried Polaroids.

“On my ride back from Chicago,” says Rutledge, “I actually wasable from my Blackberry to gain access to the voicemails people hadsent me and file the claims on my iPad through State Farm'sapplication. I was doing that in the car while my mother wasfrantically trying to get me back to where I needed to be. Thatsame technology is available for the customers. I had numerouscustomers file their claims online, either through a computer or anapplication on their telephones. [Not too long ago,] we would havebeen trying to hand write this information and would have been onlyable to fax it.”

Lessons Learned
“Every person I've spoken with says their next house is going tohave a basement and a safe room,” Simpson says. Indeed, the familywho lived in the destroyed home we visited survived in their saferoom—and left a poignant “We Lived” message on one of theirremaining exterior walls, letting friends and neighbors know theyhad pulled through.

“I think now when we talk to people about the coverages on theirhomeowners' policies, and we talk about here's what we estimatewith the tools we have on what it's going to cost to rebuild—thatwe now have the experience to know the tools we work with arelegitimate. And you need to seriously consider this even though youthink, 'Oh well, I could only sell it for this,'—which has nothingto do with the cost of reconstruction—and I think people willrealize that those [increased coverages] are worthconsidering.”

The other lesson both insureds and prospective policyholders arelikely to take away? “That catastrophes do happen. And now we knowbecause we've all experienced it, and it can be us, and it wasus.”

Personal Perspective
While I was mentally prepared for what I would experience inJoplin—and had probably seen hundreds of photos and nearly an hourof video clips—witnessing it in person was like a body blow to thesenses. I found myself constantly whispering to myself“Unbelievable”—because it was, simply, hard to accept as realcarnage on such a mass scale.

The storm's path was so wide—and its winds of such force—thatthere were neighborhoods where block after block after block wasnothing but rubble. And I'll never forget the trees—many stillstanding, but utterly denuded of all leaves, looking like starkskeletons on the desolate landscape.

As it happens, I went to a photography exhibition the Fridaybefore I left for Joplin of images taken by the U.S. Army inHiroshima in the weeks after the atomic bombing. And what I saw inJoplin was eerily, horrifyingly similar.

Decompressing, Post-Disaster
The last two weeks have been highly emotional and stressfultimes for Simpson, Rutledge, and Coleman. How do they plan todecompress when they are finally able to focus again on theirpersonal lives?

“I have my State Farm trip to Disney scheduled for June 25 withall of my family and grandchildren, and I am definitely going,”says Rutledge. “We've had an EF-5 tornado, and I am going to DisneyWorld.”

“What I do typically [when I return after a months-longassignment] is I walk into my house and literally just relax,complete release,” says Coleman. “I will take a good long nap thatwill probably be a day and a half.”