What a tornado sounds like as it hits your house.

[Jesda]

A tornado hit Missouri today. Fortunately, the storm was much weaker as it arrived in St Louis.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQnvxJZucds[/youtube]
At 2:10 and 3:05 you can hear it hit. Sounds like a train plowing through the living room at 100mph.

"I love everyone"
"I love you"
"Jesus jesus jesus, heavenly father"
"I'm scared for my life"



The Basics:
Population: 50,208
Metro Population: 174,300
75% of Joplin destroyed by a multi-vortex tornado
30 confirmed deaths as of 5/22/2011, 11:50pm
St John Medical Center is badly damaged and cannot take new patients
The high school severely damaged







More pics:
http://jesda.com/2011/05/23/joplin-miss ... y-tornado/

[Razi]

Wow...

[InfinitiEric]

Very sad and almost scary just seeing and hearing the pictures/videos. I hope things get better soon for everyone affected by it.

[alms24sebring]

Wow pretty incredible. Oh Jesus Jesus.

Something tells me that I would so do that If I knew I was ganna live

[Jesda]

High res:
http://www.flickr.com/search/show/?q=joplin&s=rec

[IBCoupe]

Just got an email from NPR. They're reporting new official numbers: 89 dead.

[RobPaulson]

that was insane. good thing they had that walk-in storage.

[Amays U G37S]

Been watching this on CNN this morning. 89 dead and they are still lookin.

[naladude911]

holy f***......

[RCA]

Damn. Makes you appreciate every thing.

[naladude911]

The predicted hurricane season for 2011 is supposed to be really bad too..........

[AZhitman]

...sitting here in the safety of my office, praying for those affected.

Jesda, do we have anyone in the area that we need to check in on?

[Rev_D21]

The wife and I were in Joplin 3 years ago at the time we drove from NY to Tulsa OK.

[alms24sebring]

The predicted hurricane season for 2011 is supposed to be really bad too..........

I have a problem with this. Remember 2005 with all the named Hurricanes and Katrina. The 'experts' predicted the same season in 2006 with like 5-8 major storms (cat. 3 or above ??) or whatever. Summer 2006 - Nov 2006 not a single Hurricane made a threat to the US.

Just goes to show, YOU CAN'T PREDICT A SEASON!! (or the end of the world)

I feel like there have neen ALOT of tornadoes this year and the last.. or is it just me?

[Jesda]

...sitting here in the safety of my office, praying for those affected.

Jesda, do we have anyone in the area that we need to check in on?

There's a pretty large number of Z owners in that region of MO, but I can't recall specific names.


More pics with captions:
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2011/0 ... again.html

Last picture is of a family that moved to Joplin after leaving Louisiana due to Hurricane Katrina.

[nissangirl74]

Last picture is of a family that moved to Joplin after leaving Louisiana due to Hurricane Katrina.

http://inapcache.boston.com/universal/s ... 1/bp24.jpg

They need to move to Arizona. Seriously, how much destruction can one face?

[Jman0711]

Wow thats really crazy, you can hear the raw power of it just by the video can't imagine being there in it basically.

[Z32 TwinZ]

is it just me, or has A LOT of tragic stuff happened since the new year caused by mother nature... is 2012 still a myth?

[InfinitiEric]

is it just me, or has A LOT of tragic stuff happened since the new year caused by mother nature... is 2012 still a myth?

No more than usual

[Jesda]

Its been the largest number of tornado-related casualties since the 1950s, but its not a particularly bad year or even a bad decade. In the past, communication and emergency infrastructure were less than adequate.

Some cities, including mine, have overused their tornado sirens, so people stop believing them and ignore them like car alarms. The other problem is that tornadoes form so quickly that by the time the siren goes off, it might be too late to take cover.

[nissangirl74]

Death toll has just been updated to 116. I think one thing that contributes to the larger number of deaths is that the storms are hitting places previously untouched by tornadoes. There had never been a tornado of destructive force touchdown in the county I grew up in until this year. 7 people died and many lost their homes. There was no such thing as a siren or an alarm. All they had was the local TV and radio stations broadcasting their best guesses.

[Jesda]

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metr ... 88c6c.html
122 dead.

1500 "unaccounted for" :o

Yeesh. I'm giving some of my fat-guy clothes from last year to the St Charles Chamber of Commerce tomorrow where they're accepting donations. Hopefully none of the tornado victims mind dressing like a preppy douche. I'm also making a cash donation to the American Red Cross. FEMA says money gives volunteer organizations the most flexibility.

[IBCoupe]

If I find a new job this summer, I might use my vacation time up in my last two weeks and head down to help clean up/rebuild. Then again, we'll see what other disasters arise between now and then, and if there's a new job to be had.

[Kenrik]

We have hurricanes down here in Florida but rarely do people get killed.. Even then it's usually because they were doing something stupid like trying to go windsurfing in a Cat 5.

This really sucks I feel bad for them.

You would think they would learn not to build houses out of wood? Almost every house down here is CBS construction.. you might loose your roof but the walls will not go anywhere.

[Jesda]

We have hurricanes down here in Florida but rarely do people get killed.. Even then it's usually because they were doing something stupid like trying to go windsurfing in a Cat 5.

This really sucks I feel bad for them.

You would think they would learn not to build houses out of wood? Almost every house down here is CBS construction.. you might loose your roof but the walls will not go anywhere.

Nothing will stand up to F4/F5 except a safe room made out of extremely dense materials that are impractical for constructing an entire house.

So thats what insurance is for.

[alms24sebring]

Or underground. On top of that its probly expensive to build. If I lived out there I would def have a concrete underground cellar with 2 exits if possible. Or, I would just move out of tornado alley...

[Jesda]

If you leave tornado alley, you could end up in a place where there's earthquakes, hurricanes, snow, ice, extreme heat, venomous spiders, earthquakes, terror attacks, floods, grizzly bears, mudslides, wildfires, etc.

Statistically, the quietest part of the country for disasters is central coastal Oregon, which happens to be one of my favorite parts of the country.

I *love* storms. I also love snow as long as it melts within a couple days. I should have been a meteorologist.

[Kenrik]

We have hurricanes down here in Florida but rarely do people get killed.. Even then it's usually because they were doing something stupid like trying to go windsurfing in a Cat 5.

This really sucks I feel bad for them.

You would think they would learn not to build houses out of wood? Almost every house down here is CBS construction.. you might loose your roof but the walls will not go anywhere.

Nothing will stand up to F4/F5 except a safe room made out of extremely dense materials that are impractical for constructing an entire house.

So thats what insurance is for.

Hurricane Andrew was over 200mph.. for several hours!

My moms house did not even loose a single roof tile. You have to remember we have strict building codes down here, my moms house is cement block poured with cement, even the inside walls are all cement.. She has inch thick cement tiles that are all interconnected/glued together. We had a F3 Tornado hit the house with no damage when I was about 10 years old, a bunch of trees came down but the house did not move. The only place that got really destroyed (see image below) was in South Miami where they had built houses out of wood, Dumb asses. They don't make them out of wood down here anymore

I wish my house we as well built.. my exterior walls are cement but I have drywall for my inner walls and a shingle roof.

Andrew:

[Jesda]

300mph+ for an F5.

The primary issue with building for tornadoes is that they don't have a predetermined path or regularity. A hurricane might plow into Florida every couple years in more or less the same widespread area.

Tornadoes touch down frequently all over the country, rarely in populated areas (because populated areas occupy a small amount of space). That's like building a fire-proof house in Texas on the off chance of a rare wildfire. These aren't things that hit with regularity. There is no tornado 'fault line' with specific, regular, and precisely mapped impact zones.

[nissangirl74]

They aren't finding anymore survivors. The number of people missing is uncertain. Most people seem to think the 1,500 number is inflated.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110526/ts_ ... RvZGVhdGg-

Never in my life have I been so thankful to live where we do. All we have to worry about out here is high heat for 3.5 months a year and some creepy-crawly-critters. I can live with all of that. F a bunch of damn tornadoes.