JoMo

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

Yeah, I just found the warning. I think it was on the CBS morning show (that's on at like 3-4 AM) that I saw the report and the reporter said "and they had no warning" BULLETIN – EAS ACTIVATION REQUESTED TORNADO WARNING NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE HUNTSVILLE AL 243 PM CDT WED APR 27 2011 THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN HUNTSVILLE HAS ISSUED A * TORNADO WARNING FOR… NORTHERN CULLMAN COUNTY IN NORTH CENTRAL ALABAMA… SOUTHEASTERN MORGAN COUNTY IN NORTH CENTRAL ALABAMA… * UNTIL 315 PM CDT * AT 238 PM CDT…NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DOPPLER RADAR WAS TRACKING A TORNADO 7 MILES SOUTHWEST OF LOGAN…OR ABOUT 15 MILES SOUTHWEST OF CULLMAN…MOVING NORTHEAST AT 50 MPH. REPORTS OF DAMAGE HAVE BEEN REPORTED NEAR CRANE HILL.

Was the Cullman tornado warned after it had already touched down? I saw a news report where they said there was no warning.

I'm not sure that's blood you are seeing. It's probably a combination of oil, transmission fluid, brake fluid, etc.. from the car.

This is basically what I was trying to say. I wasn't actually saying the on-air personalities did a bad job, they did a tremendous job. I'm saying the impression that they gave was that if people 'hunkered down' they would survive. Spann and whoever that CBS guy was both knew it was a violent tornado long before it hit the Birmingham area. Maybe there needs to be more education to the public about what kind of damage a violent tornado can do and that simply getting in a hall closet will probably not protect you during a violent tornado so you should look for underground shelter or get out of its way.

There's at least one mobile home park in this area that has a shelter. People do use it.

Yeah, I do understand that, but you may be giving people the false assumption that they will be safe if they do as they are told, even in the face of a tornado that has a low survivability rate. If people believe that they will survive if they go to an interior room, even though the tornado isn't going to leave anything on the foundation, you've just given someone who may have lived if they would have ran away the wrong advice. If they think 'well he said I'm going to be safe' so I guess I won't try to run from the storm. I'm probably not wording it right, or something though, sorry.

Well, I'm not saying it should be used in all situations, just especially rare ones like this in which you know a tornado is probably very violent. You are telling people that their best chance will be to hunker down and they believe that really is their best chance, but it may not actually be.

What if.... what if.... Well the fact remains that the TV personalities told people they would be safe if they 'hunkered down' and now it appears that was bad advice as the death toll rises. "You'll be safe if you get to the lowest level in an interior room" may have stopped people from actually being safe by getting out of the way.

Not always cost effective. This is probably the best solution but you have to be willing to pay upwards of $3,000+

I'm sure some of the people that died while hunkered down would disagree.

You could always get a safe room. However, they are pretty expensive and probably not feasible for a lot of the homes in the southeast due to the cost. http://www.missouristormshelters.com/

Find a sturdy shelter that can take an EF-5 Drive away. It worked during the Picher, OK EF4 tornado.

If they were warned and know they were warned, you can't really place 'blame' on anyone but them. You can't say they weren't warned and it wasn't a failure in the warning system. There are unfortunate circumstances where people like the elderly can't get to a shelter. I live in a house on a slab, meaning I don't have a basement, my neighbor does have a basement though and I can go over there assuming it isn't underwater at the time. You also have to deal with 'warning fatigue'. When an area experiences a lot of tornado warnings and 'nothing happens' at their particular location, they may not take action when that one time something does happen at their location.

I'm not sure about their warning systems down there, but there are warning systems (sirens) that are activated via a phone number and they are equipped with a battery backup.

Radar deflecting off of debris aloft. It's typically an area of extremely high reflectivity located near the hook. (mostly on the south side)

Warning people means nothing if people don't heed the warnings. The speed of these storms plus the strength of the tornadoes sometimes catches people by surprise.

yep, windows blown out, trees down, some awning blown off.

That's insane.

Yeah, hoping for more of a south trend with that system as I think the warm front will probably be just south of here on the 12z GFS. That's nasty looking.