on_wx

Just thinking back to that day... the tornado obviously caught all of us by surprise. In the thread everyone was focused on the Midwest and it wasn't until the 70dbz+ debris ball appeared over Joplin that people started posting. Then almost immediately after came Jeff P's dire spotter network report did anyone begin to realize what was happening. We couldn't get tv coverage, radio stations were out, scanners weren't available. Then sometime after, which wasn't more than probably twenty minutes, TWC's Mike Bettes arrived on the scene and we all saw the destruction first hand.

Well...

From what I remember... TWC went live, then national and international stations jumped on the story within the hour and it was a huge mess of confusion because no one knew what was happening.

One thing I personally remember and feeling anxious about was CNN's coverage. After posting in the thread, reading online articles, and watching TWC online... it took CNN what felt like hours to start to report the facts. The headline was "BREAKING NEWS: TORNADO SLAMS JOPLIN, MISSOURI" and they reiterated over and over that no news was coming out of the city, no one knew what was going on, and affiliates were en route... even though, what I remember, TWC was already reporting facts and information was quickly becoming available on, for example, social network sites.

CNN just kept talking about how it sounded bad, no info, then they got a hold of a chaser in Joplin who was at some highway service station that was skimmed and the chaser for probably an hour continued to report his story of "somewhat moderate damage, they saw trees down" etc.

Anyone remember this? I wonder what CNN's deal was. By the time they turned off live programming for the night, they still knew next to nothing, even though other outlets were factual and up to date.

Edit, I guess I've long wondered if maybe CNN doesn't have legal ground to report other networks information or reports and they had to personally send one of their legal affiliates to the scene before they could report.I have no idea how it works. But it was a frustrating night.

Not that I'm aware of. There probably will be local news coverage.

Cracks me up, lol

Well Ten for Joplin sounds like a great effort had to donate some to the cause and passed the link on.

As for just married is that beer cans??

Next up.... 10 (houses) for Joplin from the Tulsa and Joplin Habitat for Humanity.

http://www.tenforjoplin.org/

Thanks for the link

Oct 29 is the wall-raising with 350 volunteers expected! Any idea if this project will be featured on a tv show like EMHE?

In today's episode........

Storm shelters. I keep forgetting to take the camera with me so I missed a few, but here's a couple I've seen.

This looks like your standard inground shelter, but it's in kind of a weird place, maybe in the garage?:

View from the back:

Believe this is a concrete indoor shelter poured inside the house, missing the top still:

And believe this is one being poured:

I think the city is expecting all housing to be replaced, however I don't know if that's realistic considering how many lots are still for sale. The general thought is that once an area starts rebuilding, it will gradually 'fill in'. I've witnessed that over in my area with more homes being built around each other as time goes on. Some people are buying their neighbors lots in order to build a bigger house. There are some smaller lots that the city is not allowing rebuilding on. These are left over from the mining days and you couldn't really put a modern house on them. I'm unsure if the city is buying these or not though.

Storm shelters are left up to the people rebuilding to decide. I've seen a few inner concrete shelters poured and I've talked to people that are planning doing the same thing. It adds a few thousand dollars to the rebuilding cost but I would put one in. There are houses that have rebuilt without them though.

The city has applied for a FEMA grant to subsidize tornado shelters for those that want to get them, but the chances of getting that are fairly small. I have not heard about community shelters. I know there's a citizens planning committee that is looking at a variety of options on how to rebuild.

Seems a bit silly that people are rebuilding without using some of that insurance money to build a cellar. I think everyone here knows many won't build one. It happens time and again in tornado rebuilds, but man when an EF5 tears up half the city and kills hundreds, how can people just assume it wont happen again? How more apparent can it get... It reminds me off the TV show 'Greensburg' where that one family barely survived the tornado strike in their basement then rebuilt their lives in a modular home without a shelter. Just happy to have a home again. Tornado victim psychology 101 for another day.

And for community shelters, surely some plazas or churches are going to be designates. Frankly sad to hear you haven't heard of any going up. There is a mall I frequent in Port Huron, Michigan and all around the shops are signs that say 'TORNADO SHELTER --->", if you follow the signs you go to a set of stairs to an underground area with two entrances.

The area that the Huffman's live in is doing really well. It's not too far from me. I make note that it's building up fairly quickly over there when I take my monthly camera shots of the area. Some areas are slower moving of course, and there's still a lot of lots for sale by owner.

http://www.whnt.com/...0,2804113.story

JOPLIN, Mo (Reuters) - Four months ago, a tornado swept Rick and Jolene Huffman out of their house and dumped them unconscious into a clearing more than a block away.

A harrowing way to lose their home and nearly their lives but the Huffmans are rebuilding on the same spot, undaunted by memories of the tornado or devastation of their neighborhood.

*Construction contractor John Adams said houses in many neighborhoods destroyed by the tornado were 70 or more years old. People with patience and foresight will be rewarded for rebuilding, he said."Sooner or later they will be surrounded by new homes," Adams said. "It will probably be much nicer than it ever was."

A couple questions about rebuilding. Are they expecting something like a post-Katrina landscape with a couple houses amidst a sea of empty lots? If so, any plans to buy out lots and fill them with perhaps trees or just try to sell them off over time(which seems more logical)? Also, how about tornado shelters? With everyone rebuilding how many shelters are we talking? Or are there plans for large community shelters?

Interesting info on the sirens. I would have actually thought that once the tornado had touched down, they would leave the sirens on the entire time, but I guess they didn't.

Midland. They were on sale after the tornado. Thought SAME would be warning programmable, but apparently the Midland ones aren't.

It varies by area emergency management policy. Some cities will only sound their sirens if the NWS can confirm in their warning a tornado has touched down. Other cities will sound their sirens only once for 3-5 minutes when the warning is issued. Some sound them continuously. Others sound them once, then sound them again after a tornado is confirmed. Some cities use the siren tones in different stages. They will activate the "Alert" tone, or steady wail, at first warning, then if a tornado is spotted, they resound the sirens in the "Attack" tone, up and down wail.

Studies in Canada have suggested that the "attack" tone is most easily recognizable by the public that there is an immediate danger. I don't know of many areas that use the "alert" tone here. I studied emergency management so I know a thing or two about this kind of stuff on this end at least with a dabble in US happenings.

Some older versions of the Midland radio are programmable. The new version that comes with the flashing light accessory for the hearing impaired are not. You should look online for weather radios with SAME that can be programmed. You can order radios off company websites or other weather radio dedicated stores. You can also suggest to your friends and family which radio to get and can program it for them if they need it.

Also JoMo what weather radio are you using? I had a Midland radio with SAME, but you couldn't program the advisories. Bought a Radio Shack NOAA Public Alert weather radio with SAME in Erie, Pennsylvania. It's programmable.

And to add, something else irritating about the Canadian weather radio network. Warnings don't come out in polygons here, there is no "locations impacted" or "storm was near" stuff. All our warnings go out in "zones" that were created in 2002. Some follow the county system, other zones are completely made up by Environment Canada that just include cities every 20 km.

My regional municipality(urbanized county) is some 900 sq km. It's all one Environment Canada zone called "Kitchener - Cambridge - Region of Waterloo". If a storm is clipping the southern border, EC will issue a warning for "Kitchener - Cambridge - Region of Waterloo" thus putting almost 600,000 people under a warning, and my weather radio 30 km north of that storm goes off telling me there is a storm. Then, the weather radio only indicates what warning and for what zone. Warning text or discussion like "a storm capable of producing..." is not included in the Environment Canada network. So, I've had countless severe storm false alarms for a storm no where near me that I have to get of bed, turn on the computer and run the radar to see what's going on and if I should be concerned.

These Environment Canada warning zones are the sole reason why emergency preparedness fails in this country. You'll never be able to devise tornado plans for businesses and schools without risking the countless false alarms for the non-specific warning zones. Also majority of our severe thunderstorm and tornado warnings come in huge blankets. Sometimes warnings go out covering 10 counties(which would no doubt be the size of 30 Kansas counties) before storms have even formed. Even the tornado siren network fails in this country. So many times the tornado sirens have gone off for a storm that will never impact this area, but we're in a blanket warning.

I'm not sure about the call on the sirens. I'm not sure how long the battery lasts.

I agree on the weather radio. Even using SAME technology, you still get flash flood watches that come out over the radio at 4 AM with no way of only programming in that you want severe/tornado warnings. (at least on the one I have)

Joplin uses the Federal Signal 2001 siren

http://www.federalsi...D=4&lookup=2387

It's the most common siren in the US and it's spilling over into Canada. IIRC, the 2001 has a battery life of 30 minutes. If the power is still on, the siren can run for something like forty-five minutes before it needs a ten to fifteen minute break. If the power goes out mid-siren sounding, the siren won't turn off because the battery activates, but the pitch or sound it makes becomes a deeper tone because it's using less power so the motor chopping the air slows down. From what I gather about that article, Joplin believes if they run the sirens too long the batteries will die. But, the power would have to go out first, so as long as the power is still on, and the city can detect whether each siren still has main power, the siren can go off as often as the city likes.

I'm no siren expert, but I'm 95% positive that is how it works.

Big article in the paper today that takes a few more quotes from the assessment report. Apparently the Joplin and Alabama tornado assessment surveys are going together.

http://www.joplinglo...rs-about-sirens

Memphis comes to mind where the city sounds their sirens for the entire duration of a tornado warning. Also, as the article states, Tuscaloosa sounds their sounds continuously, too. That city uses the same siren type as Joplin. Conflicting information? Joplin officials think the sirens will break if they run them continuously, but other cities are doing it just fine.

Also it talks about grants for weather radios. Even here in Canada, sometimes the weather radio network can be real annoying. Going off in the middle of night for something silly like a frost warning. I had to program mine to only sound for severe thunderstorm/tornado watches and warnings. If you mandate or donate those radios to the public then I imagine a lot of radios will end up stored away in the closest due to too many alert messages for some of the dozens of silly NWS advisory products that make their way through the weather radio network.

Weather radios should be restricted to just life threatening advisory products like severe storm and winter storm warnings.

This video shows a pretty clear tower cam shot of the tornado at about 1:00

Nunavut is missing off all those posted weather maps, just saying

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.

Sirens can make several different tones depending off if they are computerized or mechanical. The sirens in Joplin are mechanical, so they can make three tones:

Steady

Up and down

Fast up and down

Steady is an old cold war tone meaning "alert", you know, be on alert something is possible... such as if a tornado warning is issued based on radar per se, then "steady" should be "attention everyone"

Up and down, or fast up and down, which during the cold war meant "attack", or an attack is imminent or occurring. So, if a tornado is spotted or reported the "attack/up and down" tone should be sounded on the sirens. Merrill Wisconsin does this apparently, in all the videos of the tornado from May 2011, or maybe April, whenever that MDT/PDS watch "busted" in WI, that city of Merrill did a steady tone when the warning went out, then as the tornado was moving into the city they did the up and down tone.

Computerized sirens have a wide variety of tones, maybe six or more, plus voice capabilities. Sometimes in cities with talking computer tornado sirens it will be a high-low tone followed by a message "tornado warning seek shelter immediately" it's pretty creepy.

This video makes me feel uncomfortable

JoMo good to hear your ok

Some of what you say may be true. An example could be the Christchurch 2011 earthquake. Every major news outlet carried the story for a day, but the NZ government didn't begin to release damage numbers or fatality numbers for three days. By then, aside from Australian and NZ news outlets, the rest had moved on to other stories. That earthquake killed 181 people and they don't even know how they will rebuild the city of 375,000 because it's been so badly damaged. Yet, you never heard any follow up story because the figures weren't made clear for weeks.

That is a real nightmare scenario. It might be 10 years or 100 years from now but it will happen someday.

Schools usually close on high risk days in the US don't they? Imagine if they canceled sporting events on high risk days... one of those cheap disaster movie plots with a mayor who refuses to cancel an event because the revenue will benefit the city comes to mind.

Agreed. It could just be "one of those things". But even a simple statistical analysis of the fatalities-- where they occurred, in what types of structures/vehicles, etc.-- could shed some light on what exactly happened. We need to understand it.

This is like the tornadic Katrina-- a single, contemporary event causing an "anachronistic", "old-school" death toll. In 2004 I would have told you that there's no way in hell that 1,000 Americans would ever again die in a 'cane-- and then Katrina killed almost twice that. Of course, with Katrina, the causes were fairly obvious. This Joplin event is somewhat mysterious by comparison.

CNN had an official on the phone today who said up to 270,000 people can be in Joplin for work, shopping, visiting, etc. Seems surely plausible there was a very high number of people in the shopping districts, restaurant districts, driving, etc. Also, with families at home instead of at school and at work...

Someone said on here it's a good thing it didn't strike at night, but if it did then there wouldn't have been hundreds of people in the Wal-Mart that was hit, all the restaurants would have been closed and those tens of thousands of possible visitors would be back in their rural homes, etc.

I really don't know any statistics, I'm just speculating right now, but I'm studying emergency management and there is just so much going on right now my mind is going a thousand miles a minute.

I think we will have to take a look at the entire system to see what improvements can be made, but it may be that there are not a lot of practical solutions.

Everyone in tornado alley needs an underground tornado shelter. All shopping centres, libraries, schools, and campgrounds need tornado shelters. I know there has already been enough debate about the need for tornado shelters since April 27, but come on really... so many lives can be saved it people can go into a reinforced underground or above ground structure. Hiding in a main floor closet in a woodframe plastic siding home is just no longer an option. Something really needs to be done.

Also, stores like Walmart etc should at least be built now with safe rooms in the back.

That is just my opinion, though. It's good there has been a long stretch without extremely deadly tornadoes, but it's just becoming too clear there is really no hope for you when the next major tornado hits a city if you don't have a shelter.

that isn't strong enough wording. the warning should have said large and extremely dangerous tornado. and there should have been a tornado emergency.

I don't think anyone realized how big the tornado became. The storm went from very broad rotation and a messy looking hook to extreme rotation and a massive debris ball in just one scan. Look at chaser video, it went from a small funnel to wedge tornado in what feels like seconds. The NWS began using strong wording immediately after.

Where did you hear that from?

Live news conference on CNN

Just unbelievable

Does anyone know if a tornado emergency was issued for Joplin?

SEVERE WEATHER STATEMENT

NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE SPRINGFIELD MO

542 PM CDT SUN MAY 22 2011

MOC097-222300-

/O.CON.KSGF.TO.W.0030.000000T0000Z-110522T2300Z/

JASPER MO-

542 PM CDT SUN MAY 22 2011

...A TORNADO WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 600 PM CDT FOR CENTRAL

JASPER COUNTY...

...A TORNADO WARNING ALSO REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL FOR NORTHERN

NEWTON...SOUTHEAST CHEROKEE COUNTY...AND SOUTHERN JASPER COUNTIES...

AT 538 PM CDT...TRAINED WEATHER SPOTTERS REPORTED A TORNADO NEAR

JOPLIN...OR 6 MILES NORTHEAST OF GALENA...MOVING NORTHEAST AT 45 MPH.

LOCATIONS IMPACTED INCLUDE AIRPORT DRIVE...ALBA...ATLAS...BROOKLYN

HEIGHTS...CARL JUNCTION...CARTERVILLE...LAKESIDE...NECK CITY...

NORTHEASTERN JOPLIN...OAKLAND PARK...ORONOGO...PURCELL AND WEBB CITY.

INTERSTATE 44 BETWEEN MILE MARKERS 13 AND 18 WILL ALSO BE IMPACTED BY

THIS TORNADO.

IN ADDITION TO A TORNADO...THIS STORM IS CAPABLE OF PRODUCING LARGE

DAMAGING HAIL UP TO BASEBALL SIZE.

PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...

A TORNADO WATCH REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 900 PM CDT SUNDAY EVENING FOR

SOUTHEAST KANSAS AND SOUTHERN MISSOURI.

I was not following this right as it happened, and can someone verify if Joplin had just a tornado warning, or if a tornado emergency was issued? I went through the Central Forum thread and do not remember seeing any tornado emergency?

It was warned some 15 minutes before it hit

BULLETIN - EAS ACTIVATION REQUESTED
TORNADO WARNING
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE SPRINGFIELD MO
517 PM CDT SUN MAY 22 2011

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN SPRINGFIELD HAS ISSUED A

* TORNADO WARNING FOR...
 NORTHWESTERN NEWTON COUNTY IN SOUTHWEST MISSOURI...
 SOUTHEASTERN CHEROKEE COUNTY IN SOUTHEAST KANSAS...
 SOUTHWESTERN JASPER COUNTY IN SOUTHWEST MISSOURI...

* UNTIL 600 PM CDT.

* AT 514 PM CDT...NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DOPPLER RADAR INDICATED A
 TORNADO NEAR RIVERTON...OR 4 MILES NORTH OF BAXTER SPRINGS...MOVING
 NORTHEAST AT 40 MPH.

* LOCATIONS IMPACTED INCLUDE BAXTER SPRINGS...CLIFF VILLAGE...DENNIS
 ACRES...DIAMOND...DUENWEG...DUQUESNE...FIDELITY...GALENA...IRON
 GATES...JOPLIN...LEAWOOD...LOWELL...REDINGS MILL...RIVERTON...
 SAGINAW...SHOAL CREEK DRIVE...SHOAL CREEK ESTATES...SHOAL CREEK
 ESTATE AND SILVER CREEK.

INTERSTATE 44 BETWEEN MILE MARKERS 0 AND 13 WILL ALSO BE IMPACTED BY
THIS TORNADO.

I attended a conference where one of the surveyors gave a presentation on rating the Elie tornado. It was interesting how they went about it. Even though it directly impacted some man made structures they didn't feel like they had enough information to go on. They ended up using video (from a tripod) to track debris of known size to determine wind speed. Regardless, great thought, effort and care went into that rating.

They took about four or five months to determine it was an F5. Not like they jumped the gun right off the bat. I'm still suspicious about that tornado, but WFO Winnipeg is just about the best performing office out of them all, so it adds credence.

I don't know but the Elie Manitoba F5 was not very wide when it was filmed destroying the homes that earned it that rating.

I don't trust Environment Canada tornado ratings. Most of the time they confirm tornadoes over the phone with possibly a picture or two of damage emailed to them. All the damage pictures I've seen from Elie MB show roofs off houses and pine trees on their side. But then again, I'm no expert.