A handful of Valley students studying to become pastors at Ozark Christian College are stuck in the disaster zone without a home.
Fresno's Gregg Hull lost power to his apartment after a series of twisters ripped through Joplin, leaving him no choice to but to stay with a friend.
"People are still in shock. I'm still in shock. I don't know what I'm going to do as far as a job or anything yet. Because my job was completely destroyed." said Hull.
Hull works at a mattress store in town. He described to us via Skype the how he wedged himself between a mattress and a box spring as the ferocious tornado struck.
"As it went through I could hear it start, the debris and the wind just starting to go through and the wall actually fell over and leaned in and the roof got torn off about six or eight feet from right above where I was at I could see the sky and the storm from underneath the mattresses." said Hull.
"We were just shocked because it's home. It was as if Fresno got hit by something." said Lito Solorio.
Solorio also has ties to Joplin. He graduated from bible college there in 2010 and returned home to preach at Northside Christian church in Northeast Fresno. Solorio says it's tough seeing the destruction from 1,600 miles away.
"Right now it's hard because you see landmarks that you're familiar with and you see streets on television that are telling you what that street is. And it doesn't even look like the street that I knew or that I'm familiar with." said Solorio.
Pastor Solorio had already planned a trip to Joplin next week for a lengthy vacation. But now it's turning into a relief mission where he plans to deliver items and gift cards collected through a church fundraiser.
