Joplin Area Folks?

[Grace]

Anyone here from there? Y'all ok??

 

[Grace]

89 people dead so far.
I once considered moving to the Joplin area. Good thing I didn't.

 

[Zoom-boing]

I'm just looking at videos and footage from it. OMG, it's just awful.

Here's a link w/some vids. The second one is a first person view inside of a store. Nothing happens the first 2 minutes or so then all hell breaks lose. Can't see much but you can hear everything. Prayers out to everyone affected by these and all of the tornadoes.

5 Incredible Videos Of The Tornado In Joplin, Missouri [VIDEO]

 

[xsited1]

Not me, but here's some pictures:

Flickr: Cloven Life's Photostream

 

[Grace]

omg. Those poor people in that second vid. I was scared with them.

 

[waltky]

Death toll up to 116, ties deadliest on record...

116 killed by Missouri tornado, tying it for deadliest on record
May 23, 2011 - At least 14,000 people are without power in Joplin, an electric company reports; A federal weather official warns "we are ... entering the peak of tornado season"; President Obama issues a disaster declaration for affected counties; More tornadoes are possible Tuesday in Joplin and other cities in the central U.S.

The toll in the tornado that ripped through Joplin soared to 116 on Monday, a city official said, tying it for the single deadliest twister to ever hit American soil since the National Weather Service began keeping records 61 years ago. City Manager Mark Rohr told reporters that people from more than 40 agencies are on the ground in the southwest Missouri city, braving relentless rain and devastating wreckage looking for survivors. They found seven people alive Monday, he said, though the number of fatalities rose to a level unmatched since a tornado struck Flint, Michigan, on June 8, 1953.

"We're going to cover every foot of this town," Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon said from the National Guard Armory in Joplin. "We are ... optimistic that there are still lives to be saved. But (first responders) have seen a tremendous amount of pain already." The Sunday-evening tornado chewed through a densely populated area of the city, causing hundreds of injuries as it tore apart homes and businesses, ripped into a high school and caused severe damage to one of the two hospitals in the city. Based on preliminary estimates, the twister ranked as an EF4 with winds between 190 and 198 mph, National Weather Service director Jack Hayes said. "Everybody's going to know people who are dead," said CNN iReporter Zach Tusinger, who said his aunt and uncle died in the tornado. "You could have probably dropped a nuclear bomb on the town and I don't think it would have done near as much damage as it did."

The nightmare may not be over for Joplin or other parts of the United States, with the weather service warning about more potential disaster on Tuesday. The National Weather Service warned there was a 45% chance of another tornado outbreak -- with the peak time between 4 p.m. and midnight Tuesday -- over a wide swath, including parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri and Nebraska. The Storm Prediction Center placed several large cities in the most high-risk area, along with other cities including Kansas City, Missouri; Dallas, Texas; Topeka and Wichita, Kansas; and Oklahoma City and Tulsa, Oklahoma. Joplin is among them. Already, parts of the city of 50,500 were unrecognizable, according to Steve Polley, a storm chaser from Kansas City, Missouri, who described the damage as "complete devastation." Aerial footage from CNN affiliate KOTV showed houses reduced to lumber and smashed cars sitting atop heaps of wood. Other areas appeared to be nearly scoured clean.

MORE

See also:

More Violent Weather Expected Across Nation's Midsection This Week
Monday, May 23, 2011 - Storm center says bad weather expected all week

More tornadoes are expected across the nation's midsection through the middle of the week, but it is unlikely that any outbreak will be as widespread as one that hit the South last month.

The Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla., says more violent weather is expected after a tornado killed at least 89 people at Joplin, Mo., on Sunday. Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma could see tornadoes Monday and Tuesday, and the bad weather could spread to the East Coast by Friday.

The head of the storm center, Greg Carbin, says that while Joplin's death toll was high, Sunday's storms couldn't compare to those that killed more than 300 across the South on April 27. He says storms this week should be more isolated than the Alabama outbreak.

Source

 

[AquaAthena]

My heart breaks.

 

[waltky]

Panic, professionalism at hospital...

At hospital hit by twister, panic but also professionalism
23 May`11 - Dozens sought protection; some staff 'were hurt, but they worked all night long'

Jonathan Elliott had heard the sirens blaring outside St. John's Regional Medical Center for nearly 30 minutes when things suddenly took a terrifying turn. The building started shaking, the lights began to flicker and 16-year-old Elliott could feel the wind coming up beneath the floor in his grandfather's seventh-floor hospital room. It was time to make a move, and that's what Elliott and his grandmother did, making a dash for the relative safety of an inside stairwell. Up to that moment, "we had no idea it was going to blow," Elliott said.

The tornado that smashed Joplin on Sunday evening also ravaged one of the town's major hospitals just when it was needed the most, killing six people, blowing out windows and sucking up X-rays and medical records and dumping them two counties away. After the twister had passed, the entire 367-bed hospital was evacuated for fear of structural damage to the modern, nine-story building, where walls were knocked 10 feet out of place and rooms strewn with broken glass, concrete, ceiling tiles and other dangerous debris. Some patients were taken out in wheelchairs, while others unable to make their way out on their own after the elevators were disabled were slid down the stairs on mattresses.

A destroyed medical helicopter lies on its side in the parking lot of St. John's Regional Medical Center in Joplin, Mo.

Doctors and nurses set up a triage center in the parking lot amid crushed cars and a smashed helicopter, but once the storm victims were evaluated, they had to be sent to other hospitals for treatment. Some staff members who reported to work at St. John's after the tornado were themselves injured but toiled through the night anyway. At the time, the hospital had 183 patients. At least 59 of the St. John’s patients were taken to a sister hospital in Springfield, spokeswoman Lisa Cox said. The patients ranged in age from a 4-year-old boy to a 91-year-old woman, she said, adding that none of the patients' conditions has been confirmed.

At least 90 other patients were taken to CoxHealth hospitals in Springfield, said spokeswoman Stacy Fender. Many were treated and released and a few were admitted, said Fender, who couldn't comment on the patients' conditions. The recovery effort was going as smoothly as possible, said Cox, of the St. John's site in Springfield. She credited frequent drills with calm amid the chaos. "They really do a great job of preparing us for these kinds of incidents," she said.

'Looked like a nuclear disaster'

See also:

Twister search finds 17 survivors, but more dead
Death toll rises to 116; 1,150 people injured; 25 percent of Joplin damaged

The death toll jumped to 116 on Monday after a massive tornado tore through this city on Sunday, leaving six miles of destruction: a forest of splintered tree trunks where neighborhoods once stood; a hospital and high school destroyed; and cars crushed like soda cans. The death toll had been at 90 on Monday morning, but by afternoon officials told reporters it had risen to 116 — making it America's deadliest single tornado in 64 years and the second major tornado disaster in a month. By Monday evening, search and rescue workers had found 17 victims alive, but their task was made more miserable by a new thunderstorm Monday morning that pelted part of the city with quarter-sized hail.

Gov. Jay Nixon told The Associated Press he did not want to guess how high the death toll would eventually climb. But he said: "Clearly, it's on its way up." Seventeen people were pulled alive from the rubble. An unknown number of people were hurt. Fire chief Mitch Randles estimated that 25 to 30 percent of the city was damaged, and said his own home was among the buildings destroyed as the twister swept through this city of about 50,000 people some 160 miles south of Kansas City. "It cut the city in half," Randles said of the twister, which was three quarters of a mile wide at times and kicked debris 20,000 feet up into the sky.

Nixon told MSNBC TV that some 2,000 structures saw "significant damage," and that searching for survivors remains a priority. There's still a "significant potential for saving lives," Nixon said. More than 1,150 people were treated at local hospitals, the Joplin Globe reported. An estimated 20,000 homes and businesses were without power. A number of bodies were found along the city's "restaurant row," on the main commercial street, Newton County Coroner Mark Bridges said. "The loss of life is incredible," said Joplin Mayor Mike Woolston. "We're still trying to find people. The outlook is pretty bleak."

More Twister death toll jumps to 116; 17 found alive - Weather - msnbc.com