JoMo

And I just put this together. This is Franklin Technology Center before and after from a picture I took yesterday. I heard the NWS used this as one of their points of reference for the EF5 rating.

Panorama that shows Franklin Tech before and After. Also Greenbriar nursing home where at least 11 perished. http://www.nytimes.c...-panoramas.html

The Joplin Globe had a fascinating story that included interviews with people along the path of the storm. It included information that included: St. Johns was shifted 4 inches off it's foundation. 4 out of 5 people that took shelter in the Elk's lodge died. There were also multiple reports of an "eye" with calmness in the center of it. http://www.joplinglobe.com/local/x1190396915/Along-tornado-s-path-victims-recall-trauma-wonder-about-future

This is St. Paul's. The middle of the sanctuary is scooped out but the playground equipment is perfectly fine. This power pole was splintered. This was a PVC pipe assembly of some kind sticking into a house that was about 2 blocks away from where the tornado hit. What's left of someone's door was found just below the above house. A little girls shoe that I found in my yard. No idea where it came from and it wasn't there before the tornado. This really creeped me out... The final picture I took until today was a picture of a mom and her son on the 2nd level of their house attempting to gather what was left.

Yeah the car has been there, it's just weird. The actual home was probably poorly constructed and it wasn't all brick. Just the front and around the garage. There are street signs like this all over since it's very easy to get lost since the landscape does not look the same. There's even street names painted on the streets in some places. This was bedding or a mattress wrapped around a tree. Just general destruction pictures:

Yep, and if you want to see the 2 houses (the pics with the black car in it) Go to "2448 West 26th Street, Joplin, MO" and turn the camera around to the left and you can see that they are now gone and all that's left is the slabs.

The building was built to withstand 300 MPH winds. If the tornado had been a little bit bigger or stretched farther south, it would have knocked out both of our hospitals. http://www.ky3.com/news/ky3-hospital20110527,0,1937966.story JOPLIN, Mo. -- Mercy Health System-St. John's Regional Medical Center said its hospital tower, severely damaged by the tornado last Sunday, will not be rebuilt. Structural engineers spent the week checking the structural integrity of the building. On Thursday, it was announced that, while the building is not at risk of collapse, the site remains “very dangerous.” Mercy said repairing and reoccupying the building is not a viable option.

Probably about 1/2 mile or less. I was in front of where the Elks lodge? was. You can see the flagpole in the St. Johns picture. I was told 2 people died there and there is nothing left of the building. It used to be where the backhoe is in this picture. Look towards the center and a little to the left and you can see the backhoe which was there to dig people out from under the rubble. I don't think St. Johns is going to rebuild there. It doesn't make a lot of sense having both your hospitals about 1/2-3/4 of a mile from each other and the building itself and the surrounding area looks like total loss.

Since I'm bored and in the curfew zone. I think this car has been here since before the tornado. It's sitting where the garage of a small house was. There's debris under it's right rear tire. The house is nothing but a slab of concrete now. There is damage to the left side of the car and it's left window is busted out. At first I thought someone had just parked it there, but it has not been moved since at least Tues. To the right of that there's another small house with a slab. When this picture was taken there was water flowing from this house from a water line. This one is of two guys checking a gas meter that was still leaking, Spray painted on it was "Haz Gas". A view towards St. Johns regional medical center:

Honestly I have no idea what charities are legit. You may check in with KZRG on Facebook. You can also try Joplin Tornado Info. Churches and other places are posting what they need on there. http://www.facebook.com/NewsTalkKZRG?sk=wall http://www.facebook.com/joplintornadoinfo

We'll need help once this gets out of the national news. There is a lot to clean up. One thing I found cool was that there's basically a case of bottled water on every street corner in the zone for people to get in case they need it.

I toured the entire area today. I can't believe the destruction and I got lost in my old neighborhood. Everything looks so closed in, but so far away. The only way you can tell there was a house at the locations worst hit is because there's a driveway in front of it. I did take some pictures and I have pictures left over from days ago as well that I will have to upload sometime. Someone requested a pic of Franklin Tech, I think a meteorologist, and I can clearly say Franklin Tech doesn't exist anymore. There are a couple places that still have bricks that are about chest high, the rest of it is completely destroyed.

There's a series of videos from someone who just moved here 2 weeks ago from Seattle as he ventured out right after the storm. Video 1 and 2 are pretty boring. Video 3 which I have linked shows Wal-Mart on 15th and Rangeline. Video 4 is pretty boring as well but shows the Home Depot from a distance. Video 5 shows the area around the high school and Dillons Supermarket which was also destroyed and the apartments around it. This was in the EF-5 damage area. Video 3 Video 5

Here's a vid of the damage around the high school and Franklin Tech. At around 10-11 seconds on the left of the screen, you can see a parking lot and what looks like cars, just to the left of that is where Franklin Tech used to be, but there is nothing there at all. He turns down the street my ex-gf lives/lived on I believe and I think at the end of the video is what's left of her house although I am not sure. Her husband, step-daughter, and she were in either a bathroom or a closet and survived, some in this area were not so lucky she said as she saw a couple of people that did not make it.

Franklin Tech was a brick building right across from the high school. There's nothing left of it now. I think the bricks are about ankle high. It was used to help determine the EF-5 rating. I just read that 139 are now dead.

The last few years Springfield has been tornado warning happy. I think it all really started getting that way after the Derecho in 2009. I wouldn't mind having a safe room. I'm sure other people would mind though, or some couldn't afford it if it wasn't subsidized into the construction or something. Tornadoes of this magnitude are pretty rare. The chances of being hit by a killer tornado are pretty low. There's probably a much much greater chance you will die in an auto accident before you are killed by a tornado. Joplin has a very low cost of living, and to shell out $5,000 for a safe room..... I'm not sure how many people would do that or could afford that for that once every 200 year killer tornado.

jhamps10: I know what you mean, we may suffer from 'warning fatigue' due to all the warnings. Storms happen a lot here, usually they are overnight storms from the MCS's that develop in the summer off the Rockies. Most of the time, the tornadoes we do see are usually pretty weak due to the time of day and the distance they have traveled. (cold pool interactions, etc) This was just a 'perfect storm' type situation because the EF5 tornado lifted after only traveling 7 miles. The same area of storms produced again but the highest rating was an EF2 with that path length being 17 miles. wintrymix: I know that several trailer parks have community shelters around here. Community shelters sound like a good idea, I'm just not sure how feasible they are.

Interview with Jordan Aubey who is a reporter for Fox 14/KOAM (Doug Heady's station). He was injured in the tornado and describes it in great detail. I think he may still be in shock a bit from what happened. He saw the devastation of the Picher, OK tornado and said he couldn't believe it.

Yeah, Doug is on facebook and he forgets to come here. http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002024792564&sk=wall He was on-air during the tornado.

Why do you find that interesting? There are a lot of tornado warnings here every year, most don't produce. Actually around May12th I believe it was, a storm showed signs of rotation just west of here, I actually saw the rotation in the sky and it may have produced a funnel, but it lifted off to the NE and never produced an actual tornado. The first thing that everyone here does is go outside and look for the tornado. During the first tornado warning and round of sirens, about 6 of my neighbors were outside talking and looking around. Everybody took shelter during the second round of sirens which were activated just prior to the tornado hitting as you could hear the rumbling sound and see the extremely dark sky.

yeah, that's right. It looks like a nuclear bomb hit, or those old WWII photos where the cities have been shelled. Lots of volunteers and faith based organizations are helping out... for now. I hope they stick around for the long haul. We see our share of severe storms and tornadoes but nothing like this has happened in a long time. I think the last actual tornado that did a lot of damage was the one in 1971. http://www.joplinpubliclibrary.org/digitized/joplin_tornado_booklet.php

Some shingle damage is all and even the tree in the back yard could be saved. It's now tied back up and standing up. The next block over sustained more damage and even one block farther sustained even more. It was mostly tree and roof damage until you got to where there were no houses one block from there. I was mostly worried about flying glass and other airborne projectiles so that's why the closet. There were a bunch of 2x4's with nails, ceiling tiles, glass, and other items in the yard including a piece of someones desk or entertainment center and other assorted objects in the yard. We are still in rescue and recovery mode. A couple of places already have frames for new buildings going up though. I've talked to people that are moving away due to the storms and others aren't sure what to do yet. Many are still in shock. Only about what, 30% of Joplin was hit?

I just heard it. I'm not sure if I would have wanted to see it. I can replay the moment with perfect clarity in my head when I figured out that it was a tornado and not thunder though. There's a lot of frustration when it comes to that. People want to know if their loved one is dead or alive. They are wondering what is taking so long and they think they can identify their loved ones by tattoos, etc. However, at least one person misidentified someone as being theirs.

I suspected it was the interaction with the northern cells, perhaps they produced an OFB that the southern cell merged and traveled on that boundary. That would be why the HRRR was picking up insane somewhat localized helicity of 500+ coupled with the rapid updraft due to 5000 CAPE. And... Was just informed that they found a car with 5 people in it, in a pond not far from me. They are going to drain the pond and look for more bodies. Was informed earlier they found a body on someones pasture near here :-\

I'm guessing about 3-4 minutes. I think at 5:17 I posted: "nd there go the sirens, rotation just NW of here." This was the 2nd couplet that formed and not the actual tornado I don't think. This slid off to the north of me. Then at 5:27 I posted: "Pitch black out, couplet nearly on me... Joplin, MO" This was the 3rd storm and the EF-5 couplet. It rolled through about 3-4 minutes later. After I posted that, I looked out west and saw the lowering, then a minute or two after that, heard the rumbling.