Massive tornado hits Joplin, MO.
 

Simply unbelievable destruction. My daughter and her husbands house is completely demolished, as is my mother-in-laws. Somehow none of them are injured.

Never did I dream I would have to walk through mass destruction and try to figure out where and which house is my daughter's, and then walk through the rubble yelling out names.

Thankful your family is okay, prayers for all of the stress & strain that lies ahead.

prayers for your family, thank God they are safe, possessions can be replaced.

Friend of mine's parents just lost their home. Very sad news, thankfully everyone is alright.

Sorry for their losses, but glad that everyone's health is intact. It has been a frightening few years for natural disasters.

Pretty good video of what happens when a tornado hits. Darker, darker, then it sounds like a train rolls through the building. Whole lot of prayin' after that.

Thank God your family is safe. Shocking death toll already.

Very sad to hear the death toll this morning, my prayers go out to the people of Joplin. :(

Bunch of pics on this feed from a citizen......

Flickr: Cloven Life's Photostream

Two amazing video from the Weather Channel. Reporter talks in first video and runs into guy begging for gloves to dig through rubble to get to people. Second video is where reporter recounts that he has already seen dead lying in the streets and rubble.

http://www.weather.com/outlook/video...astation-20705

My wife's parents live in Carl Junction, a suburb of Joplin. Their house is about 6 miles from the area that was hardest hit. They and their house are both fine, but my FIL thinks he may have lost some employees...

Apparently they lost their house and car. The hospital she works at is essentially destroyed from what they are saying. Extremely lucky to be alive and have a room in their basement with no windows. Here is a photo sent from a phone of their street. It used to be lined with trees.

Here is what the Joplin Dillon's store looks like. Astonishingly, everyone in the store was able to crowd into the freezer area and avoid serious injury.

Didn't realize until just a minute ago that my agency has a field office in Joplin. Thankfully everyone and their families are safe.

Death toll at 116.. that picture is unreal. I couldn't imagine what those people were going through while the twister was coming through.

I was talking to people that lived in the area. Not many basements in Joplin. It is on top of limestone, caves and mines. A friend went to school at SW Baptist in Jolin and worked at the Wal-Mart that was destroyed. He said that the floor would sway when you pulled a pallet across it.
The Cop that works at our school said Joplin sent out a request for 300 more body bags. The death toll could be very high.

Here is a picture of Joplin H.S. 2200 students go to this school.

Most of southwest Missouri is the same way. Springfield, MO is a large town with a basement being a rarity. A centrally located room is the place to go under that circumstance, but doesn't do much good if the whole house is leveled. I can't imagine living without a basement or in a mobile home in Tornado Alley. I'd certainly invest in a tornado shelter for my backyard if faced with that option.

Just watching some footage online. Absolutely heartbreaking. I can't imagine the horror of the storm bearing down, and then going outside afterwards.

Just incredible.

+1

I grew up in Springfield and have made regular visits to Joplin over the years, including a couple of tournaments at the high school. Just an utterly unbelievable tragedy ... thoughts and prayers with everyone in Joplin.

Over the years I lived in Springfield, only 1 in 4 of our houses had basements. Joplin is on the edge of the Ozarks Plateau, so where you don't have limestone ridges you have soft clay soil that are not conducive to basements either. We would always go into an interior bathroom, and pull our mattresses in to cover up.

Our house took a glancing blow from an EF-3 tornado a few years ago, and it was a "lite" version of that video posted from the convenience store. The tornado hit about 2:30 a.m. and there was no advanced warning. The storm woke us up and was ranging on when it started to get loud and scary. We instinctively ran to the basement, and by the time we got down there it was over. Probably only took about 20 seconds for the actual tornado to pass through, but it sounded just like that video.

I wish somehow there was just one picture of this beast. That thing was either so wide or on the ground so long. Just unbelievable looking at pictures/video.

Wow. That thing's gotta be more than a mile wide. Just unfathomable.

Doesn't even look like a tornado. Looks like just a large blob.. I can't even imagine having 3/4" of your town just gone.

I'm getting really uncomfortable with all of the for profit storm chasers out there.

I have an intern that works for me that storm-chases as a hobby. The money in it can be very good. He's affiliated with KCTV here in KC. If his video is telecast on the station, he gets $500/second for the video. Only catch is that they instantly gain full rights to the video once they show it. He can't resell it to another media outlet.

I didn't know so many people on the board had connections to Joplin. Cleanup/rebuilding will be a long process obviously, the pictures are horrible.

Going to be a pretty scary day today. Weather service predicting large outbreak of tornadoes through eastern Kansas into western Missouri. Kansas City, Springfield, Joplin, and Tulsa all in the areas of concern.

With the possible exception of the ones who've got their own TV show, I doubt there are many (any?) that have crossed into "profit" and instead are just happy if they somehow cover a portion of their expenses.

It's more the idea than any financial success. The whole enterprise is rather gruesome. I have a hard time listening to the excitement in the voices while I'm watching a tornado kill 100 people.

To be fair, 98% of all tornadoes do little more than tear up trees and knock out auxiliary buildings in rural areas. A tornado hitting an urban area is very rare. A F4-F5 hitting an urban area and killing more than even 10-20 people just hardly ever happens. It's amazing that it's happened twice this year in the U.S.

I'm going to take a wild guess that you've never chased. That much adrenaline, you're gonna sound that way. No different than what most police chases sound like really, I've actually heard people giggle during those.

Plus, it isn't as though there's anything a chaser can do to prevent what's happening. What they can do however, the good ones anyway, is help people better understand & prepare & respect what those things are capable of.

It should also be noted that the video is all used for research of tornado formation and how to provide earlier warnings for citizens which in turn leads to less deaths. They can take the video of the tornado and sync it up with radar from the same time to see if there was anything on the radar that would help them detect formation of the tornado.

1500 still missing or unaccounted for.

Plus weren't they pulling people out of the rubble in Alabama? It's not like they stick on the sidelines.

Actually, it goes way beyond that. If you've ever watched Storm Chasers, you'd know that 99% of the time, they stay away from storms targeting populated areas, both because it's danger for them (in the plains, they can see a tornado coming for miles; in the south, it could be beyond a bunch of trees and they wouldn't know it until it was right on top of them) and because of the risk of damage and loss of life. They prefer to chase in the plains, where there it's easier and less dangerous to track.

That said, even when they do go into populated areas, it isn't to see a tornado damage houses and kill people, it's for the science of it. And when they are in a bad situation, they help out whenever they can. Most of the time, though, there's very little in the way of the tornadoes they chase other than a few power lines, a farm here and there, etc. And those were going to get damaged whether or not a storm chaser was there to film it.

Speaking of which, we were going to watch the Storm Chasers special on the Alabama tornadoes last night, but our local tornado siren went off and we spent the better part of the 8pm hour in our basement.

reedtimmerTVN Reed Timmer
SPC upgraded tornado probabilities to 45%. this rivals the April 27 outbreak. Heading west in D2. Watch out today pleeeaase

Weather.com's TOR:CON rates conditions on a 1-10 scale. Southern central Kansas and Northern central Oklahoma are both at 9's.

good lord...

I grieve for the heartbreaking loss to so many families and communities, and certainly wish that all suitable authority figures focus on every rescue and recovery effort that they can. Our best wishes and aid to all those affected.

At the appropriate time, I hope someone can check in and report to the world on the well-being of Fred and Red's. Hoping for the best, but its location (right downtown) doesn't sound encouraging based on what we're seeing thus far.

From their FB page at
Incompatible Browser | Facebook

My dad owns Fred and Red's and yes it is okay...a broken window I think and no power...devastation just blocks down the street through...keep Joplin in your thoughts!

Thanks - first time I felt any actual regret at not using Facebook.

Eh, don't feel too bad. A quick Google turned up the page for me, otherwise it wouldn't have crossed my mind (I was thinking I might get a hit on a reference to it in a news story or blog somewhere).

If you want to know what a bow echo looks like, check out the KC radar right now. That curve in the storm is straight-line winds pushing the middle of the storm out in front. Sky is green right now.

I know I shouldn't be surprised by this, but it does still amaze me how ruthless mother nature can be. For all the things we can control in this world, that is one that we just can't.

I respect the scientists, but there are a growing number of folks that are chasing just for the rush and/or money. Most of the time it's no big deal, but when it hits a highly populated area it just feels wrong to me.

It would be one thing if some people were only chasing storms in highly populated areas for the "money shot," but the fact is, these storms - wherever they are going to hit - are going to hit regardless of who is watching. So as long as someone doesn't get in the way of people trying to flee or rescue operations, etc., I don't really have a problem with it.

Truthfully, from what I've seen on Storm Chasers, the bigger problem is the amateurs who have no clue what they are doing and line busy highways trying to be in position for a tornado sighting.

It's those amateurs, hoping to hit it big I'm mostly talking about.

Maybe. But I get the feeling a lot of them aren't necessarily doing it for the money. More a thrill of the chase thing. They seem to follow the pros around and create problems for everyone. In fact, last season on Storm Chasers there was a story arc involving all the people crowding the roads.

More pictures from Joplin. One of the photos is a before and after comparison. Stunning stuff.

Flickr: Aaron Fuhrman's Photostream