![]() They documented their experience with a video that was drawing tens of thousands of views online by Monday afternoon. “It was 15 minutes of hell,” Wohlford said.Īt a Fast Trip convenience store, another 20 people ran into a pitch-black cooler as the building began to collapse around them. The family narrowly escaped after a shelf of toys partially collapsed, forming a makeshift tent that shielded them. I had two pregnant nurses who dove under gurneys … It’s a testimony to the human spirit.”Īs the tornado bore down on their trailer home, Joshua Wohlford, his pregnant girlfriend and their two toddlers fled to a Walmart store. “I spent most of my life at that hospital,” Roscoe said at a triage center at Joplin’s Memorial Hall entertainment venue. Jim Roscoe, said some members of his emergency room staff showed up after the tornado with injuries of their own, but they worked through the night anyway. A crumpled helicopter lay on its side in the parking lot near a single twisted mass of metal that used to be cars.ĭr. The storm blew out hundreds of windows and caused damage so extensive that doctors had to abandon the hospital after the twister passed. John’s Regional Medical Center, where staff had only moments to hustle their patients into the hallway. Some of the most startling damage was at St. At times, it was three-quarters of a mile wide. Hayes said the storm had winds of 190 to 198 mph. The rating is assigned to storms based on the damage they cause. National Weather Service Director Jack Hayes said the storm was given a preliminary label as an EF4 – the second-highest rating given to twisters. The groups went door to door, making quick checks of property that in many places had been stripped to their foundations or had walls collapse. Teams of searchers fanned out in waves across several square miles. Fires, gas fumes and unstable buildings posed constant threats. Rescue crews had to move gingerly around downed power lines and jagged chunks of debris as they hunted for victims and hoped for survivors. “By the time we tried to get under the house, it already went over us.”Īs rescuers toiled in the debris, a strong thunderstorm lashed the crippled city. “Five minutes later, the second warning went off,” he said. Larry Bruffy said he heard the first warning but looked out from his garage and saw nothing. While many residents had 10 to 17 minutes of warning, rain and hail may have drowned out the sirens. Jay Nixon said he was “optimistic that there are still lives out there to be saved.” An unknown number of people were hurt.ĭespite the grim outlook, Gov. Unlike the multiple storms that killed more than 300 people last month across the South, Joplin was smashed by just one exceptionally powerful twister.Īuthorities were prepared to find more bodies in the rubble throughout this gritty, blue-collar town of 50,000 people about 160 miles south of Kansas City. It was the nation’s deadliest single twister since a June 1953 tornado in Flint, Mich. Fires from gas leaks burned across town, and more violent weather loomed, including the threat of hail, high winds and even more tornadoes. ![]() It was the nation’s deadliest single tornado in nearly 60 years and the second major tornado disaster in less than a month.Īuthorities feared the toll could rise as the full scope of the destruction comes into view: House after house reduced to slabs, cars crushed like soda cans, shaken residents roaming streets in search of missing family members. (AP) – Rescue crews dug through piles of splintered houses and crushed cars Monday in a search for victims of a half-mile-wide tornado that killed at least 116 people when it blasted much of this Missouri town off the map and slammed straight into its hospital. The tornado tore a path a mile wide and four miles long destroying homes and businesses. Residents begin digging through the rubble of their home after it was destroyed by a tornado that hit Joplin, Mo. ![]()
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