JOPLIN, Mo. -- With her wedding just two months away, Nikki Ange isn’t obsessing over invitations and guest lists like some might expect. Instead, the 25-year-old environmental scientist with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is helping the city recover from one of the nation’s deadliest tornadoes.
And, like all of the corps employees here from around the country, she volunteered for the work.
It’s been unlike anything she’s ever experienced.
When Ange arrived, almost a month after the deadly May 22 storm, she was awed by the destruction left in its wake " more than 6,900 homes destroyed and another 875 damaged, about 500 commercial properties, a hospital and most of the city schools left in shambles.
“I was kinda like the gawking bystander; I just wanted to take it all in,” Ange said.
But Ange had no time to gawk.
That week, the corps ramped up its efforts to remove an estimated 1.87 million cubic yards of debris from the streets and residential properties of Joplin. Signs posted around the Corps’ Recovery Field Office reminded employees of the monumental task ahead of them: just a million cubic yards of debris could cover the Kansas City Chiefs’ home field at nearby Arrowhead Stadium " to a height of 510 feet.
The corps set a goal of having the job done in 67 days. Ange arrived on day 21.
“The first day was hectic,” she said. “I was running around between crews and trying to learn everything, trying to learn where streets were because there were no street signs or landmarks except the debris piles, which were always changing. There was still a lot of work out there.”
After a week serving as a quality assurance specialist " ensuring contractors removed debris properly and safely " supervisors gave her a new assignment: assessing private properties before debris crews arrive. She took to it immediately, said Garrett Wickham, a volunteer from the corps’ Portland District and team lead for the assessments.
The assessments begin when a property owner or, in some cases, city officials sign a Right of Entry, or ROE, a document allowing the corps to enter the property and remove debris. Then, corps teams locate the property, mark the property lines and address, sketch and photograph the property, and note and flag debris types and piles, utilities and hazards. With this documentation done, corps quality assurance specialists and contractors can locate and clear the property quickly and safely.
Ange enjoys the work " it’s not that different from the day-to-day work she does in Virginia for the Corps’ Norfolk District. As an environmental scientist in the district’s regulatory branch, the Old Dominion University graduate is often outdoors gathering information for pending permit applications or for the enforcement of actions taken without a permit. It’s work she described with a smile as “like crime scene investigation " for the environment.”
The assessment work requires a lot of movement throughout the 6-mile-long, one-mile-wide debris area, requires a lot of responsibility, a lot of independence, Wickham explained.
Ange was a natural for the work.
“You’re on your own out there and given enough responsibility to make decisions,” Wickham said. “I don’t have to worry about her. I can send her off with a stack of ROEs [assessments] and instructions to call if there are any issues.”
The work Ange and others do for the assessments is a critical element of the corps’ debris removal process, said Ron McDonald, a volunteer from the Portland District who serves as a quality assurance supervisor.
“Without an accurate assessment, we’d have teams going out there that are really unprepared for what’s on the property, McDonald said. “It’s actually a very good process.”
The importance of the process isn’t lost on Ange, who identified the need for and developed a step-by-step assessment checklist for new corps volunteers to use after the current team departs. While she was completing that task, she also developed job aids for incoming quality assurance specialists and took on the job of training new arrivals chosen for assessment work. Wickham said he loves her reliability.
“The great thing about Nikki is that you can tell sometimes that she’s not excited about doing something, but she never complains,” he said. “She just smiles and does it.”
That kind of positive attitude is crucial for mission success, said Traci Davis, a volunteer from the Corps’ Kansas City District who serves as a quality assurance supervisor.
“The whole operation feeds off of attitude,” she said. “if we have a positive attitude, the contractors and the people we encounter will have a positive attitude. We’ll get things done.”
And the corps is getting things done. Just two days before Ange’s scheduled return home to Chesapeake, Va., Col. Dan Patton, the Joplin Recovery Field Office commander, reported to city and federal officials that 65.1 percent of the debris had been removed from city streets and properties.
“It’s definitely changed a lot since I got here,” Ange said. “There was a lot more debris along the right of ways and tons of houses were still standing " not completely intact, but standing. Now they are leveled out and lots are cleared.”
Ange has also changed.
Walking through the debris and seeing the items lost by people and families " important documents, valuables, children’s toys " has given her a new perspective.
“It’s motivated me to be more prepared for something like this,” she said. “It’s going to be one of my priorities when I get home.”
After the wedding.
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