JoMo

Well some people didn't go to the hospital. I know in my area, the people who had minor wounds just threw some peroxide on it and a bandage and called it good.

It's not really a big story here. The national media seems to be sensationalizing it a great deal. The people that died were likely in bad bad shape as it was and could not fight the infection off. As far as other people, It has to do with not getting the wound completely clean and the dead vegetation/fungus fester inside the wound.

What do you mean? It carved a path in a heavily residential part of Joplin. The worst is over by the high school as far as single family houses. Hampshire Terrace apartments would be up there as well. This high-res image captures the area hit hardest pretty well. http://ngs.woc.noaa....00e4105000n.jpg

I don't know. I was curious about that as well. She's been on 3 different antibiotics. She says her husband is still picking pieces of wood out of his body. They are both healthy people so they should be ok.

I don't think so. They are going to use the commercial and private lots already around the area. No new lots will be constructed unless more people need them. They are still phoning people that signed up as needing housing.

As of June 9th City News Conference: 197,000 cubic yards of debris have been removed. Around 30,000-40,000 cubic yards removed a day. 21,454 registered volunteers 69,452 volunteer hours Not including the people who didn't register 30% of hotel/motel capacity being devoted to people without homes FEMA = 2,343 rental assistance 62 residents still at the shelter. 10 units manufactured housing units headed towards Joplin 60 total units ordered. First units installed and ready by Thursday of next week. 147 pad locations, 63 have been approved. 2,453 FEMA applications for housing.. 75 need assistance for manufactured housing. Numbers are fluid and dynamic.

Does he still want to be a meteorologist in the Plains where the action is or do you think he'll be sticking to San Diego weather? I'm not really sure if that scary experience would make him be more excited about weather or less excited.

Thanks but everything is 'normal' over here. It's eerie how you can be so close to destruction but everything looks the same in the neighborhood and life goes on. I just want to commend you on being an all-around awesome guy. I just watched the story on KOAM about how you invited that 13 year old kid from San Diego to come watch you work and practice his skills and he just happened to be here on May 22nd. http://www.koamtv.com/story/14877642/future-meteorologist-visits-doug-heady-on-may-22

The sound between 0:20-0:40 seconds sounds pretty much like the 'rumbling' sound I heard that I first thought was rolling thunder. Of course it was slower to come and go in real life. It became very loud, and I was 2 1/2 blocks away from where the major damage occurred, so I can only imagine what it sounded like for those poor people in the path. Also just heard from someone who won't be coming back to Joplin. She was with her sister and brother at her sisters apartment. The apartment collapsed and her sister didn't make it.

These are people that are dying of their tornado injuries at hospitals around the area. The death toll was 138 or 139? after the tornado but has since risen to 151 after the deaths from the people in the hospitals over the last 2 1/2 weeks. I read a story today that some of the people who were triaged now have infections as well.

Just heard on KSN news (local NBC affiliate) that the death toll is now 150 after 5 more people died in hospitals Been seeing more signs of repairs and reconstruction going on around the area. Everyone is still in a pretty upbeat mood, and happy to be alive.

The actual track on the NWS site of where the center passed was 5 1/2 blocks south of me or so. I'm questioning if I was actually in the inflow or the outer part of the circulation itself now, heh Also here's a news story on the NWS team here conducting interviews. http://www.joplinglo...ng-Joplin-storm Wagenmaker said several of the people with whom he spoke Tuesday said they heard Joplin’s storm sirens before the tornado struck, “but they wanted some kind of confirmation.” “They turned on the TV or looked outside,” he said. “When they confirmed the threat, they took cover in a variety of ways. A few had basements, but most people did not. The survivors without fail told us they found shelter in an interior room.”

Death toll is now 145. I think that moves it into 7th? Yeah, it's just... crazy... seeing all these places I've known all my life just turned into rubble. Panoramic pics: 1st picture is the area behind Irving Elementary school. 2nd picture is unrecognizable. 3rd picture is just east of St. Johns hospital. The picture of "God Bless Joplin, Down Not Out" was taken right by Irving. That was a power substation all bent up and you never used to be able to see St. Johns from there. The 2nd vid is a building that has been just about everything. An IGA, a bar, and was the Salvation Army place that just moved there not long ago. Edit: I tried to compare the pic of Irving and the substation to Google but the area he's standing in is covered in trees and houses on the Google picture.

The death toll is now 143 after another victim died in a Springfield hospital yesterday afternoon. The human aspect is part of the disaster as well as the technical aspect. People are sad that they've lost everything but they are happy to be alive. The only thing that really bothered me was some of the out of town volunteers here are treating it like it's summer camp or something and I don't think they were understanding that it's whats left of peoples lives. The vast majority of volunteers are not like that though. Many of the homes that were hit were older (20-30+ years) but well built wood structures. They were probably constructed to withstand 90-100 MPH winds or so. However, even newer houses and businesses did not fare that well either. One recommendation is hurricane straps, which are steel straps that bolt the roof to the walls, those are good up to 140 MPH and are fairly cheap. Those would have helped in some instances but the areas still in the direct path would still probably have been destroyed or heavily damaged. I think some things that the NWS assessment is going to find in no particular order: 1. They will find that the area suffers from 'warning fatigue'. We have a lot of tornado warnings where nothing happens. This makes people complacent. Several people I have talked to just thought it was the normal run-of-the-mill tornado warning where you go to your closet and sit until the storm passes. 2. People don't know what the sirens mean. They used to be for tornadoes only, but after we had high winds several years ago, they now set them off for 75 MPH winds or higher expected. They typically sound them for a short time, then stop sounding them. People don't know what it means when they stop sounding.... they think it means the storm or threat is over. It also probably doesn't help that every Monday at 10 AM in the Spring they were tested if the weather was nice. This probably caused people to get used to the sound. 3. The tornado became rain wrapped very quickly (it wasn't in my area) and was hard to see. It also had a 'rolling thunder' sound until it was practically on top of you. It had been rolling thunder off and on for a couple of hours due to the storms in the area. It took me a few seconds to realize that it wasn't rolling thunder. Seeing the couplet on radar and the power flickers were my only other visual cues since I did not have enough time to look outside. 4. It formed just west of Joplin, this did not give many adequate time to hear there was a tornado on the ground. We rely on spotter reports west of town in the counties to our west and southwest. If there is a tornado on the ground to the west or southwest, people take it seriously. You could also see the confusion on the local news channels about what was actually going on. 5. Lack of basements or people not using their basements. A lot of houses do not have basements around here due to the high water table and rocky soil. My neighbor has a basement and his sump pump runs 24/7 even when it doesn't rain. My ex-gf's house had a crawl space but they took shelter in an interior bathroom because they did not think anything would happen. I've talked to others that did the same thing. 6. The complex storm situation with multiple areas of rotation and the speed of how quickly the tornado developed and the confusion stemming from that. There were three areas of rotation, one large one with the parent T-storm well to the north of Joplin, another that quickly developed north of Joplin near Carl Junction, that may have hit the northern part of Joplin or it may have went between Joplin and CJ. And then the third one that wasn't impressive until the 5:24-5:25 radar update. It became apparent at the 5:29 update that this was probably producing at least funnel clouds. By 5:39 the tornado was on the ground just south of me. The NWS had Joplin covered in two tornado warnings I believe. One for the rotation near Carl Junction and one that was issued a little bit later for the southern part of Joplin that eventually produced the tornado. I think there was some confusion about where the tornado actually was due to the SVS that was issued that stated a tornado was spotted 6 miles NE of Galena and was moving NE when in fact the tornado was on the ground SE of Galena. That put an entirely different area in the tornado path. I believe it was corrected at 5:42. The warning can be found here: http://www.americanwx.com/bb/index.php/topic/18858-devastating-tornado-strikes-joplin-missouri/page__st__620__p__721723#entry721723 I would like to think this wasn't a factor at all, but Joplin is very 'religious'. There are a lot of churches here. People also believe that God will protect them from harm. I've heard many people say that actually. Some of the older people say 'If it's your time to go, it's your time to go', meaning they would rely on God and not really do anything to protect themselves. I would like to think that people sought shelter the best way possible.

I'm not sure about the detailed survey but I know the Picher, OK service assessment from the May 10th 2008 tornado has Oct 2009 on it's pages. I would think that there would be something out before a year and a half passes... but it is the government. I know that NWS/NOAA was going to have 3 mets here yesterday I believe.. to study 'what went wrong' and how people responded to the warnings, where they took shelter, etc... They will probably be here for a few days gathering data since there were so many people in the path of the tornado.

Town meeting tonight. People picked up the right of passage papers to allow the gov't contractors on their property in order to remove debris. They have until June 15th to turn them in. Only 20,000 of the 3,000,000 cubic yards of debris has been picked up. In 10-12 days, temporary housing will be here. I was in the disaster area around sunset tonight and that was probably the most creepy thing I have ever experienced. There was nobody in sight, no birds chirping, no sign of life at all. Mix that with the sign of smashed up cars, destroyed houses and piles of debris and it didn't seem real. It was like being in a post-apocalyptic movie.

An amazing story from a stormchaser/doctor from Florida who was on the storm and helped out at Freeman hospital. Some of it is a bit 'gory' and he does talk about having to make the decision to let someone die so others could be helped. http://stormdoctor.blogspot.com/2011/06/first-response-mode-may-22-2011-joplin.html

Nice, thank you for doing that.

They need to do something different with the sirens as people aren't really getting what they mean. I mean, they blow when there is a tornado warning, but some people think that when they stop going off then it's an 'all clear'. I don't know if they could change the tones or make an 'all clear' signal or what, but it's currently pretty confusing for people. And it was dark outside, I was right under that black area.

Jeff Piotrowskii's video and the aftermath as the pulled up at 20th and Iowa. The new footage begins at 3:50 or so. Not sure why there's a slowdown. At around 4:40 you see the remains of Franklin Tech.

Yep. from the Joplinmo website. http://www.joplinmo.org/tornadoinfo.cfm#vol

Just received information that the death toll has climbed to 141 after 3 more people passed away in the hospital. All the help and aid is appreciated but there are some things that are bothering me. 1. If you want to come and help, please do, but do it because you really want to help, not because you want some kind of fame or bragging rights. 2. Don't take smiling pictures of your 'group' in front of someone's destroyed house which used to contain all their belongings and/or family members, pets, etc This is a disaster area, not happy fun time.. 3. There are still people that live here, please be courteous to them. They were here, they know what happened, you were not.

And here's Arkansas. They apparently were training in Little Rock on May 17th, heh. http://nwahomepage.com/fulltext-news/?nxd_id=239667

Interesting write up by Jon Davies. http://davieswx.blogspot.com/2011/05/joplin-tornado-environment-large-shear.html Anyone found any other meteorological analysis of the tornado other than the SGF NWS? I know the study won't come out for a bit.

According to the survey it crapped out pretty fast and was EF-0 for a long way, they are basing that on the high-res imagery that was taken. http://www.crh.noaa.gov/sgf/?n=event_2011may22_survey