Joplin Missouri Hammered Hard by tornadoes!

What a thread to come home to...
Ugh i know it might not mean much but i you made me feel as though i was in the disaster zone and i wish i could give some humanitarian aid =\ keep your family safe. That is the number one important thing to do.

reply to post by Cloudsinthesky


They are staging volunteers tomorrow morning at 8:00 at the MSSC Athletic Center. Most of the Law Enforcement folks were coming back on duty at 7:00 a.m.

The First Responders coming into town to help are being staged in two areas on South Main, near the Capri Motel, and also across I-44 around 50th and Main. Just in case you missed it earlier and had any nurses or friends that were planning on trying to help.

reply to post by getreadyalready


Yea I saw those staging areas............The only way I could get home from St Johns was to go down Main to I-44 and go to Galena to Carl...............Just could not get through going North..............

Cloudsinthesky, if you get the chance in the future, please write this all down, it would be a blessing to hear all of this first hand, that and I would like to know what your experience was driving in with your daughter and then making your way to the hospital, and pulling yourself away to finally go home.

One question, do you think that there are many people still trapped beneath the rubble or do you think they were able to find most people in the 2 hours before darkness fell? I am sorry if that seems like an insensitive question, but I am so worried about people being trapped and unable to be heard crying for help.

reply to post by antar


When I first got down to the area.........I had to park and walk about 1/4 mile to get to the senior center.........I had employees working there tonight is why I went there and it was right behind the hospital being shown on TV.........

People were walking around in shock..........every house was gone.........cars where tossed everywhere.........You just didnt know who if any had looked and where.................

Joplin looks like a nuclear bomb went off. It's total end-of-the-world type destruction. The thing that sucks is often people only have a short time from warning to getting hit.

Like the hospital for instance, how do you protect all those patients? There must be so many glass cuts and people getting sucked out windows. This is some old testament type stuff.

just heard a live report here in australia from a storm chaser that 75% of the town is gone...omg.

I live in Joplin. you can listen into Newton counties radios but they didn't get much damage. most of the damage in joplin was north of 32st and south of 7th street all in jasper county.

when listening to jasper county radios the 3 digit unit numbers are the county sherriff. the city of joplin's police units are 4 digit numbers.

i was out just after the tornado passed. i made it as far south as 20th st. before i couldn't go any farther south in my car. its complete and total devastation through the middle part of Joplin right now. most building are completely destroyed. Joplin High school took a direct hit from this massive tornado. all the outside walls are gone. Franklin Tech is completely destroyed. the walmart on Rangeline rd is destroyed along with the Home depot and just about every business between 15th and 20th streets on Rangeline.

the fire station on 15th street was destroyed, a church at 15th and Connecticut had some outside walls blown out and its roof was laying in the middle of 15th st. the School districts administration build was severely damaged. St John's Hospital took a direct hit from the tornado, they also reported multiple fires in the hospital. Freeman hospital just a few blocks south of St. John's received some damage but was open for Critical patients only.

Minutes after the tornado came through Joplin I saw firetrucks and police from Carl Junction, Webb City, Carterville, Carthage, Neosho all responding to area's in joplin that were destroyed. Ambulances from as far away as Springfield also responded to joplin. All non critical patients are being sent to memorial hall and all critical patients are being taken to freeman hospital and then being sent by helicopter and ambulance to hospitals in Springfield mo, Carthage mo, Lamar MO and Nevada MO. and to hospitals in Kansas as well.

Every church in the Joplin area is currently open as shelters, MSSU also opened up the legget and platt center for a shelter as well. Vernon County is taking all 911 calls for jasper county right now. I don't know if they are covering the Joplin area as well with the calls or not.

My aunt lost her house, she lives close to St. John's. she is a live and well just shooken up but she lost everything. I've lived in Joplin for 30+ years and when i got to her neighborhood it was hard to figure out exactly where i was, everything was gone and it was easy to get confused where we were at.

the last report about size and strength of the tornado i heard was it was atleast a mile wide and was atleast an EF-4 tornado. But honestly the types of building that were completely destroyed I'd guess this tornado was an EF-5. Some reports listed the tornado as wide as 3 miles wide as it went through Joplin.

Also when listening to jasper county radios the fire department answers as station 1.2.3.4.5.or The type of truck and the station number. The live jasper county feed someone posted a link to is just the Jasper county Sherriff and maybe the smaller police and fire departments, The city of joplin uses a higher freq radio system for police and fire.

Also the ambulances inside the city of joplin answer the radio as mets and a number. or newton county and a number or whatever county they are from.

reply to post by bellagirl


75% is a little high from what i saw first hand. but I'd say a good 50-60% of the town is either destroyed or severely damaged.

reply to post by Mercenary2012

Thanks for sharing your on-the-ground experiences here! Please keep us posted!

reply to post by Cryptonomicon


i'll keep every one posted. honestly right now i'm just trying to process what happened to the town i was born and raised in and what i saw today.

there was a major gas leak around 20th and Illinois streets and a massive fire just west of the highschool I'll probably wait a couple of days and get some pictures of the damage. hopefully I'll be able to get farther south than 20th street then.

I was north of the tornado. was outside watching it as it passed south of me. well atleast until i saw debris in the air, then i went in the house. the local CBS affiliate was airing a live feed from their tower cam at 7th and rangeline. they had it facing north and you could see the clouds rotating infront for the camera as the tornado passed 8-9 blocks south of the tower. after a few minutes they lost their tower cam either to a lightening strike of to debris.

Also all cell phone traffic inside of joplin has been suspened until further notice. it is emergency only. we can't call out unless its to 911 but people can call us and it will go through if the network isn't overloaded.

I-44 west bound from exit 18 is closed, and I 44 eastbound was closed at Miami Oklahoma. they reported 20+ cars and 18 wheelers were over turned on I-44. they are stopping all traffic into Joplin on I-44. Only first responders can use I-44 south of Joplin.

reply to post by antar


I highly doubt they found everyone that was trapped before it got dark. there are thousands of houses to search and hundreds of businesses to search as well in the area damaged by the tornado. go to google maps and zoom in on joplin. then find 22nd and black cat road on the west side of town. then draw a line from there to 15th and rangeline road. and that is the path it took for the most part. then the damage path is from around 8th street south to 32nd street along the path the tornado took.

Dang they are saying its worse than the last outbreak... Crazy times. I wish the dead and survivors well.
*edit* well 1 weather guy is. Not sure how bad it really is, new news to me


Deebo

I experienced this storm first hand, but further to the east. Luckily for me it was only the northern side of the storm and it had weakened a little bit. The tornado was on the south central side. I was so close to chasing this storm at around 4:30. I talked to my wife on the phone as she was driving to STL and she said she had a bad feeling and I shouldn't go. Glad I didn't. It was a beast. The radar returns were coming back with a massive and clear circulation in the base radial velocity scans out of Springfield and Tulsa. At one point the storm appeared to be about the size of four counties! While I'm so glad that it went south of me, I'm really feeling for the people over in Joplin. I'm wondering if I should head over there tomorrow to try to help. If I do I'll take some high quality photos and HD video on my 7D and try to post it.

This storm was intense. The sky was all green and afterwords there was a giant double rainbow. Probably the most beautiful one I've ever seen in my life. The whole day was sort of surreal. My wife's work has a Joplin office and they all left about two to three hours earlier for St. Louis for a conference. Some of those people might be alive now because they were gone. Upon arriving, they found out the terrible news. My wife said that they all left St. Louis immediately and headed back so that they could help and locate loved ones. So terrible. Their office, from what I can tell, likely lies in the path of destruction. This is just so terrible.

Being a trained storm spotter, there were some gut wrenching moments there where I had to decide if I should grab my bug out bag and split as this storm wasn't moving too fast and I don't have a basement. I am personally so grateful the storm made a turn to the south. This yet again shows that we need to be prepared for anything.

MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A BUG OUT BAG.

Natural disasters happen everywhere. Man made disasters are more rare, but we hype them up and talk about bugging out. It isn't silly to prepare. Do it now before the time comes and you're left wandering about the streets in only a towel like some people I saw on the news. They have nothing else!

I leave you with this heart-wrenching photo set by a pro photographer in the area. It's one of the best that I've come across and really shows the magnitude of the devastation. That Walmart really did take one to the chin. Hell, half the town did! Joplin is in my prayers, that much is certain. This really might be the next Greensburg, which is just horrible news.

[PICTURES] Professional photographer captures Joplin tornado aftermath

And guess what? We are supposed to receive thunderstorms until Thursday here! So we aren't even close to being out of the woods yet. Forecast for Monday calls for severe thunderstorms today and tonight, so not even regular thunderstorms, but more severe weather is on tap. Specifically large hail and damaging winds. Fantastic.

Do Not Go To Joplin! The town is destroyed, the traffic is awful, the devastation is unreal. Emergency vehicles are still moving people in and out. Do not try to clutter the traffic. Channel 7 will most likely have live coverage at 6 in the morning. KZRG is doing live reports on the radio right now. Go to www.koamtv.com... for some more videos.

Don't know if anyone seen these youtube videos before, but someone there saw this happening 24+ hours ago and posted a video warning everyone. He claims that these storms are HAARP induced and he shows some proof - he calls them HAARP rings.

So yeah, he posted a video on 21st of may warning all the people in that region. I have been following him for a while now and bookmarked some of his "HAARP rings" videos:

realitycracked.com...

Watch they may 21st one.

Originally posted by antar
Its headed our way now, the town of Joplin Missouri has been hit hard by tornadoes just minutes ago, debris falling from the sky over 30 miles away!

Super Cells headed our way and all I can say is stay safe all of my friends and take shelter now if you are in the path.

I heard that people were being flung while in their cars on I-44. I'm in the Northeast part of Missouri, it got pretty windy here, but nothin' else. Joplin got torn asunder, the Hospitals roof is pretty much gone, and I think I heard somewhere around 20ish people dead. Let us hope this is the last of the nasty storms for awhile, but in the meanwhile, stay safe!

they just had a live press conference. as of 5:30 central time 89 people are confirmed dead. 40 area agencies have responded to th city of joplin and over 400 first responders are in joplin getting ready to do a door by door grid search of the affected parts of the city. the national guard has been activated and headed to Joplin. Task force one of the MO. National guard based in Columbia is headed to joplin to assist in the search and rescue effort.

update on some of the damage. the count is now 2 fire stations destroyed, the high school and the tech school are destroyed. atleast 2 elementary schools were destroyed. and one of the middle schools had its roof blown off
1 walmart supercenter was completely destroyed another received minor damage.

hundreds if not thousands of houses were damaged or completely destroyed. the damage path is estimated to be between 1/2 mile to 3/4 of a mile or wider in places. the tornado basically cut the city in half. city publics works workers worked through the night clearing main roads so emergency vehicles can get through town.

ANYONE that is not a first responder needs to stay out of Joplin. if your not registered with the state of missouri as a first responder they WILL NOT LET YOU IN THE DAMAGED AREAS and IF YOU DON'T LIVE IN THE DAMAGED AREAS they will arrest you if you try to enter those areas.

they are forecasting more severe storms for the Joplin area today, and an isolated tornado is possible. any storms the next few days will slow down the rescue efforts.

official estimate is 20-30% of the city was damaged or destroyed. (roughly 20,000 structures)
the gas company is shutting off gas service to the entire city of Joplin until the gas leaks are fixed for fears of more fires and explosions.

Missouri American Water company issued a boil water order for their entire service area not just the city of Joplin.

I'll try to keep this thread updated but i really need some sleep I've been up going on 24 hours already.

Oh and they are expecting more severe weather today. we are already under another severe thunderstorm watch and already a nasty looking storm has fired up in Kansas headed east towards the Joplin area. they are saying the threat for the storms today will be damaging winds, large hail and lots of rain. something we don't need. and they are predicting another severe weather out break for this hard hit area again tuesday.

I'll be back posting in a few hours I'm getting some sleep.