Joplin Strom

News said 116 people dead from the tornadoes in Joplin. It was an EF-4 and was on the ground for 6 miles

It's really amazing that even thought they had about 20 minutes warning, all those people still died. I can't remember the numbers, but this surely is as bad or worse than Xenia Oh. and Greensburg. And the damage to their hospital is staggering. Not to mention they got hit this morning by another severe thunderstorm before they could even finish search and rescue operations. Send your prayers.

heard on he news that some didn't take the warning sirens seriously as many times they are false alarms.

Unfortunately, most people don't take them seriously unless they have experienced the real thing before. It is one of those "it won't happen to me" attitudes. It tends to be in all of us.

If the tornado is large/powerful, nothing may have saved them anyway, these people may have taken the standard precautions and got in a small room, tub, doorway, etc and the storm just torn everything up anyway.
For these large powerful tornadoes you have to be undergound.

The problem is people become complacent, we hear
the warning so many times & nothing much
happens. The sirens are there for a reason..
My Father was blinded when I was still in the
womb from a accident, When I was little every
time a warning came on the news we all had to
huddle in the basement, I thought it was
senseless. As I grew & Learned when my dad was
4years old in 1930 a twister hit their farm
as my dad watched it come over the hill &
threw orchard, took the hen house, corn cribs
barns & silo, the house was spared. This
impacted his little eye's & he never forgot for
the rest of his life.

Now that so many people have witnessed this
power of uncontrolable destruction, their lives
are forever changed. May God be with them threw
time of picking up pieces.

seen way too many of them,,when they get to ef4 size its going to take everything above ground if it wants it,your only semi safe place is below ground. It will suck the grass off the ground,and the paving off the road. it literally will suck a pond completly dry.Thats what gets a lot of folks,the inflow is simply what gets you. Shelter from the wind is easy to find, shelter from a vacumn is not!..Heres a little tip for you folks,when one that size comes close ,your cellar doors will go also.Make sure you can bolt the door down in at least two places ,three is better.Get as far away from it as possible,around a corner is good. Around two is better.it can suck you right out of the cellar, not uncommon at all!160 people is a tragedy,but when you think of all the debris flying,at speeds faster than a rifle bullet and weights sometimes heavier than the largest artillery shell,its Gods own grace that more people dont die..look at the devastation from one,and youll see the cities of europe where folks died by the thousands in a matter of minutes.it doesnt surprise me any more when folks die in these things,it amazes me more folks dont.

I heard the wind speed was pushing 200 mph!! I feel bad for those people. 20 minutes doesn't seem like enough of a warning, I wonder if it popped up very quickly. Usually here in Oklahoma we get warning from the news stations an hour in advance. I can't believe Oklahoma has dodged the tornadoes so far but today the threat is moderate to severe. I saw the city of Bridge Creek, Ok after the May 3rd, 1999 F5 tornado. It resembled pictures of war destruction.

Utterly amazed at mother nature's power!

EF-4 in the preliminary survey...but only by 2mph. The initial assesment was max. 198mph winds...takes 200 to be EF-5!

yep bridge creek tornado went about a mile north of my place.strange to see the asphalt tore off the road!or a elm tree 2 1/2 ft in diameter with one of those cheap white curtain rods sticking completly through it!

And where did you think that they were all going to go...Its amazing that 1000 people werent killed...

Reports of nearly 2,000 structures (homes and bussiness) lost. Tornado struck at 5:41PM on a Graduation Sunday, I'm amazed more lives were not lost.







I was helping clean up about 3/4 mile west-soutwest of the Walmart where lives were lost and and the entire distance looked about like the photos. Joplin will be rebuilding for years to come, we hope to return a number of times to help however we can.