Summary

Lewis begins Part Three with a detailed description of how the small city of Joplin, Missouri was devastated by tornadoes in 2001. That description unfolds through the eyes and perspectives of scientist Kathy Sullivan, “second in command – and soon to be first – at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA” (133). As the author comments on how the citizens of the area had had several minutes of warning about the tornado’s approach, and on how many had done nothing, he also comments on Kathy’s response as she visited the city in the storm’s aftermath. She saw, the author says, “what she had seen so many times: how much better Americans were at responding to a disaster than preventing it” (132). This, both the author and Sullivan suggest, has to do with American’s fundamental mistrust of government, and lack of knowledge of just...