JoMo

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.

If anyone wants to link to this story, feel free to. I have just talked to my ex-gf who was actually in the F5 part of the tornado. She doesn't have a house or anything anymore. She was injured but she's going to be ok. Her cats weren't so lucky though She took shelter with her husband and step-daughter in either a closet or their bathroom and there is nothing left of the house at all. They were over by the high school.

I don't think a "Tornado Emergency" would have done anything. This thing spun up really fast. It was on the ground just SW of Joplin. To be honest I find the updates on NOAA weather radio to be lacking in timeliness. You can tell from this video that the local NBC affiliate KSN was caught off guard as well. The guy is not a meteorologist but the female is. We have so many tornado warnings that don't produce anything so the best indicator was actually the sound and visuals for those that could see it.

Thanks for the well wishes. There was nothing weird that happened as I recall as far as ear popping or anything. I was running on adrenaline then so I don't really know. I was scared, but I wasn't shaking or anything. I still remember the sound and the loud low rumble. We just had a storm move through a few minutes ago and the rolling thunder kind of freaked me out. The best thing for people wanting to volunteer and donate is to wait for a week or two when all the hype dies down and it is no longer national news and everyone who came in to volunteer leaves. We have a large church population here and the people are very giving so we aren't short on supplies at this time, but we may get that way in a week or two. This radio station has been on the air since this happened. People were calling in and leaving their numbers for loved ones to find them, also various donation points. People also calling in offering their homes to complete strangers. "If you need a shower you can come to my place at *address*" You can listen to it online. http://www.1310kzrg.com/ One of the radio personalities wives had a broken back, a couple of them have no home anymore. One has nothing, not even his wallet. The tornado siren in this area is probably in some other state by now so they brought in temporary sirens which came in handy on Tues night I believe it was. We had another tornado warning issued but that storm never produced and the rotation remained just north of Joplin. The sirens blew a second time when the storm was indicated to have winds of 75 MPH so there were some tense moments but it never really produced. The emergency manager called into the radio station to update people as the storm was moving through. Looking at the aerial photographs that were taken, I just can't help but notice how intense and tightly wound it was. I mean, in some cases the difference between a building that was leveled and one that has minimal damage was a block or two.

This is what happened as I recall, the times may not be correct and it may not have completely happened how I remember it but this is what I remember. We are very used to having tornado warnings in Joplin. The first instinct of everyone when they hear the sirens is to jump up and go outside to look for it. It's even a joke between me and Wx24/7 that once a storm enters the Springfield, MO CWA, they'll issue a tornado warning for it no matter what. I had been watching the HRRR all day Sunday and noticed that it was developing the very last storm over Joplin but nothing farther south. The helicity was scary crazy as well. I thought this was maybe just the HRRR being flaky until I saw the storm develop over SE KS and that it was moving SE. As I remember it, the parent supercell storm that was moving SE developed a couple of cells on it's SE flank. These storms went from nothing but a small blip to a storm in no time at all. SPC mesoanalysis was showing 5000 SBCAPE. The last images other than the base velocity radar image I saw was the LFC and LCL heights, which were both 1000 over the area. As the storm(s) were approaching, I heard constant rolling thunder and lightning. I was watching the initial parent thunderstorm, it had an unorganized couplet that was rather large and I knew it would slide by to the north of me. South of that another couplet was developing on the second 'blip' that had popped up. This one was farther south than the first one but was still really unorganized. I do believe both were Tornado warned. Then suddenly a third storm rapidly developed south of those storms. A tornado warning was issued that included my area and this was the one that produced the EF-5 tornado. I watched it go from no couplet to a big bad couplet right over me in a few minutes time. ( I just watched the video that someone posted that showed how quickly the tornado went from a tiny rope to a giant wedge and I'm amazed.) I looked out the window to the west and the sky was pretty much black, much like how it looks when the sun is out at your location and there is a storm some distance away, only this time it was cloudy where I was. There was a lowering which was probably part of the wall cloud. It gave off an orangish hazy looking color against the black sky. The sirens had gone off for one of the other tornado warnings, but they were going off a second time as well. It was then I heard what I thought was rolling thunder... only this time, it got louder. I listened to the 'rolling thunder' get louder for about 5-10 seconds before I figured out that it was not thunder. I looked up towards where I heard the sound but the blinds were closed so I decided to get in the only safe place which was a closet before the windows blew out. As I turned on the closet light, the power went out. I was not really expecting an EF-5. The sound was exactly like what people compare it to, a freight train. It was a loud roar, and it had times where it almost sounded like it was growling. The winds at my location were from the north or northwest because I heard the air screaming in the garage door, it screamed, stopped for a few seconds and then screamed again and then the roar got quieter so I ventured out. I looked into the rest of the house, no glass was broken, still had a roof. I decided to look outside and despite having a tree that fell over, most of the other trees had no damage. It was now foggy outside though. I suspected I had just been through a weak tornado. I went outside and the first thing I smelled when I made it outside was the smell of freshly cut trees or wood. I thought that was a little strange, but some neighbors trees had broken limbs so I thought it was from that. The roof had sustained some shingle damage but nothing really bad. I came back inside and I turned on a battery powered radio because I was wondering what the rest of the city was getting or what had happened. It was then I heard that St. Johns Hospital was 'leveled' (a report that was not true, although it had sustained heavy heavy damage) I was like.. whoa that's not good. It was around that time I heard firetruck/ambulance sirens. These sirens ran constantly from right after the tornado hit at around 5:40 PM until midnight. They also ran a lot the next day as well. I walked down the street, heading to a local church (there's almost one on every corner here) and as I was walking that way I noticed a lot of trees down on just the next street over and the damage got progressively worse. People's privacy fences had been blown over, but this was nothing compared to what I saw at the end of the block. As I was walking I noticed the smell of natural gas, it was getting stronger the closer I got but I just had to see. People had gathered at the church and it was being used as some sort of local triage for minor wounds. I kept walking until I reached the end of the block where everything to the south of the intersection was completely destroyed. I looked down the street and I didn't recognize anything and I realized I could see much much much farther than I could before. There was a lot of traffic that was being turned around there and I didn't want to interfere with the rescue work so I returned home. I didn't sleep at all that Sunday night, the days events, the sounds, the thought that I wouldn't probably be here if the tornado was three blocks closer, all kept replaying in my head. I let the rescuers do their thing on Monday and it was raining most of the day, but on early Tuesday morning I walked back down there and down the street, and I almost could not stop walking. The entire area looked like it was a landfill. On my left, a car parked in the 'garage' where a house would have been but there was nothing but a slab there, water gushing out of a broken pipe. On my right, another street where nothing remained but debris. On the ground there was a St. Johns medical braclet from someone. The streets were marked by wooden signs spray painted with the street name. "Haz gas" was spray painted on a piece of wood next to a gas meter, a couple of guys pulled up to check and make sure it wasn't leaking still, it was, so one of them phoned the gas company to tell them it was still leaking. The area was being patrolled by police officers from the area and from other counties farther away, but they didn't have much to say or didn't care I was there since I was on foot. I ran into a lady who had brought a camera to take pictures, she told me that the State trooper guarding the intersection had told her that she had to see it. Pictures don't really do it justice though, people who have lived here all their lives and are older get turned around and lost because there are no landmarks left since it's just a debris field. It reminds me of a post-apocalyptic scene but it's real life. I probably stood on top of a hill and looked around for about 10 minutes at everything, how far I could see and where the damage path was then I returned home. I decided to go back on Wednesday, a little later in the day and people had returned home to gather their belongings. There were also rescue workers in the area. I saw a boy and his mother on the 2nd floor of what was left on their house. It didn't exactly look safe but nobody was stopping them. I heard an insurance adjustor talking to a woman as another woman was inside what was left of their house attempting to gather whatever she could. I saw a man sitting on the back deck of his destroyed home, holding his head. I looked down and saw that a bunch of debris had gathered down in this valley and rescue workers were there, attempting to find people in the rubble I guess. I felt uneasy and like I was intruding so I decided to return home. The last trip down there I took this evening. They had cleared away a bunch of the trees. The road was blocked by electrical trucks working on the electric lines, I didn't want to disturb them so I just watched them work. There was other equipment working in the area as well, no heavy equipment yet though. There have been helicopters flying over for the past few days. I don't remember what day it was but there were 2 blackhawk copters from the National Guard on patrol then two A-10's flew by. I'm not really sure what the point of all that was and most of my neighbors thought it was really stupid. It's not like they were protecting us from some kind of invasion or something. The city has a curfew in the disaster zone from 9 PM to 6 AM. You can't be in the area after that time. They were going to make people get permits, but they ran out of permits pretty quickly so they just decided to beef up security. This radio station did a great job of locating people and getting information out there: http://www.1310kzrg.com/

I'm ok. My family is ok. We just got power and phone service restored. 3 blocks away is completely gone though. I'll post a more detailed account once I check in with everyone. We know of at least 2 people we know that died. One was protecting his wife and died from injuries. She survived, he didn't. One had a compound fracture and bled to death, they couldn't give her a transfusion because they didn't have her blood type.

I'm sure there will probably be an assessment done since this was such a loss of life. I believe you mentioned the tornado in Andover earlier and the people that fled the Mobile Home Park before the tornado hit as an example. People also fled during the Picher, OK tornado a few years ago. Approximately 75-125 cars left Picher between the time the sirens sounded and 10 minutes later when impact happened. The full assessment is here including individual actions on what people did: http://www.weather.gov/os/assessments/pdfs/mothers_day09.pdf