Thread: Tornado destroys Joplin, Missouri, killing at least 89

Monday, May 23, 2011, 6:35 AM

City manager Mark Rohr announced the number of known dead at a pre-dawn news conference outside the wreckage of a hospital that took a direct hit from Sunday's storm. Rohr said the twister cut a path nearly six miles long and more than a half-mile wide through the center of town.

Much of the city's south side was leveled, with churches, schools, businesses and homes reduced to ruins.

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.

Tornado destroys Joplin, Missouri, killing at least 89 | NOLA.com

I have lived in Kansas City for the last 38 years and was born and raised in Wichita (about 170 miles south of KC). We are used to twisters in this area, and I, in my youth, watched from my rooftop, a tornado go through parts of Wichita. In college, at Creighton (in Omaha), I was more rationale in getting in my bath tub, while a tornado took out a section of Omaha about 30 blocks from my apartment. I've never seen anything that approaches the devastation from a twister, that occurred in Joplin on Sunday. The night before, a tornado took out a community of 200 in central Kansas, so it was a destructive weekend for area residents. A tornado has not hit Kansas City directly in 55 years, just the outskirts near Liberty, Missouri. I'm going to give blood tomorrow to try to help out the injured (at least 400 people) from both tornadoes.