Joplin, Missouri
Each June, Joplin hosts the Boomtown Run, a half marathon, 5K, and children's run. The event attracts runners from across the country, and features USTA certified courses which start and end in the historic downtown area. Celebrity runners featured at the prerace banquet have included Bart Yasso, Sarah Reinerston, Suzy Favor-Hamilton, and Jeff Galloway. In 2011, due to the devastating EF5 tornado that struck Joplin on May 22, just three weeks before the run, the event was transformed in the Boomtown Run Day of Service. About 270 individuals registered for the race after the tornado struck, knowing their proceeds would benefit tornado recovery. On June 11, about 270 registered runners and volunteers turned out to help clean debris and sort donations, contributing more than 1,200 hours of service. On August 7, 2012, the Village of Silver Creek and the City of Joplin voted to have Silver Creek annexed into Joplin City limits.
Buffalo Ridge
On the weekend of June 13, 1992 a large storm developed over the Northern Great Plains, resulting in severe weather in western South Dakota. On June 16, another storm struck eastern South Dakota and southwestern Minnesota destroying over one hundred homes and businesses. These supercells created many large damaging tornadoes. The first tornado formed in Charles Mix County and moved toward Mitchell, South Dakota. The second formed in Miner County, South Dakota and the third formed south of Pierre, South Dakota both causing considerable property damage. The fourth tornado formed near the unincorporated town of Leota in southwest Minnesota, spawning a "maxi" tornado that stayed on the ground for almost an hour and a half and did substantial damage to the cities of Chandler and Lake Wilson, Minnesota. In Chandler, the property damage was estimated at over fifteen million dollars. This tornado was classified as an F5 tornado on the Fujita Scale and turned out to be the only F5 tornado documented in the United States in 1992. Another tornado formed in South Dakota later in the day and made its way to Minnesota where it struck the town of Chandler for the second time, along with Colton and Dell Rapids.