O.T. Joplin Five Weeks Later

Visited friends near Joplin last week, so they took us on a windshield tour of the city. I shot several dozen photos from the car, and these (if I can get them posted) are representative of the totality of the destruction.

The tornado’s path was a mile wide, and they say six miles long, without a skip. It took everything. It was as though a giant bushhog rolled through the center of Joplin. Even the few buildings that appear to be mostly intact are probably unrepairable.

They’re saying some 7,000 homes were destroyed. If so, I don’t understand why 7,000 people weren’t killed, based on a presumption of one person per home, and it was a Sunday afternoon. Even so, the survivors lost everything but their lives.

Thanks for sharing the photos; the level of destruction is hard for me to wrap my mind around. God Bless those folks.

Amazing.

Thank you very much for posting the pictures, very interesting to see. Looks almost as if nothing has changed other than the streets have been cleared and some of the rubble piled up.
Interesting to see pictures from someone other than the media, seems they only show what they think we want to see. Of course after a few days they all leave and we don"t have a clue what is happening unless we are close by or someone like you gives us the opportunity to see it up close and personal.
I"m with you, hard to imagine there were no more deaths than there were. Seems the all mighty does look out for those that believe.
Thank you again for taking your time to post the pictures.
Downsouth

Yea it is unbelievable! We are 25 miles from Wadena MN that got hit with an EF4 last summer. That even destroyed an in ground swimming pool. Wife and I drove thourgh about a week later.
Rick

Jerry,

Do they have any Clear Strategy at this time?
Goals Short term?

Thank you for posting those pictures. That kind of damage is almost unthinkable. 7000 homes lost seems absolutely unreal considering it was one act of nature.
This year has produced some devastating weather with all sorts of extremes. Tornadoes, major floods, major fires, it all really makes you wonder what is next. It is hopefully just an unfortunate set of coincidences, not a sign of things to come.

I'm with Haywood! 5 weeks later and still piles of debris; what the clean up plan?
Where are the front loaders and skid steers with dump trucks? Or fire trucks with matches?

You can't rebuild with piles of debris still in place.

Wow that looks terrible!.. I agree with downsouth about the media. Up here they were reporting about the Missouri flooding and said that Large populations have been evacuated from two small towns. First of all there are no large populations, second the towns were miles from the river even at flood stage, third most of the flooding was on farm ground, maybe a dozen meople had to move. Gotta wonder

On a practical side, people are probably waiting for insurance settlements to come through before they go any further.

It will be interesting to see five years down the line instead of five weeks.

The town of Hallam, Nebraska is startling. A tornado went through the town five or six years ago, and the ONLY two buildings in the entire town left standing were a brick bank building and one two story frame house.

They rebuilt the entire town. In a small town, there are always ancient unoccupied buildings falling down, weedy vacant lots, etc. What's startling about Hallam, is when you drive through town every single building is brand new, houses and businesses alike.

A "destroyed home" doesn't mean a flattened home. You take the roof (or most of the roof) off a house then let it rain in it and the home is pretty much destroyed even if most of the internal rooms are relatively untouched except for the water damage.

I keep hearing stories about people that went there to help that ended up looting. This includes some fire fighters from a nearby town that were on duty and being paid.

http://www.fox14tv.com/story/14929489/3-baxter-springs-firefighters-fired-for-looting

Thanks for posting these pics. It is hard to believe and understand how this can happen in such a short amount of time. I witnessed on of the F5's in AL first hand as my aunt and uncles home was hit. My uncle told me from the time he saw the twister and got in the basement till it was over with was not much more than 15 seconds. Its amazing. There are still piles of debris around north AL. There are some lots that have been cleaned off but the piles of debris are still sitting at the road. The trucks are running as fast as they can but its just so large of an amount it takes time.

Some friends of mine live down there and another friend was just there last week. The big, multi-story hospital building was fairly new. He was told it was moved four inches off it's foundation and is a total loss. Mike

I was sent to Oklahoma City after their huge tornado in 96. This reminds me of that. Mile wide path of twisted debris.

I was in Oklahoma City for the May 1999 F5 tornado and the May 2003 tornado, think that one was a F4.

Your pictures look very similar. I had never seen anything like that destruction. I took a few pictures. Even looking back at the pictures, they cannot capture the true distruction that you see standing on the ground first hand.
You see a set of concrete porch steps, so you know a house was there, but there is nothing around for a 1/4 mile left of the house.

During the 1999 tornado, there where semi trailers that the tornado picked up from who knows where, and dropped them inside Tinker Air Force base. They looked like giant pieces of crumbled tin foil.

Haven't been back to there since '03.

Rick

What is striking about the pix is the lack of people in them. I agree with VADAVE. Where are the dumpsters and loaders? As for insurance settlements, pictures are enough to prove a claim. I doubt any of the companies said to let the stuff sit. And if they did, an adjuster should have been in the area the next day or two. If one of those homes was mine, I'd be working to clean it up if for no other reason then to get anything salvageable out. The bigger buildings I could understand taking a while but I would have expected much more progress in 5 weeks. There is a pile of black garbage bags in one picture, but c'mon, pull out the garbage bags AFTER the loaders have been through. It's almost like the place has been abandoned.

My ex sister-in-law lives in Joplin and her mother was visiting. I figured I'd be helping them, but amazingly they didn't get so much as a broken branch. Just lived in the right part of town I guess. THANKFULLY!

The Joplin devastation reminds me of smaller Greensburg, KS that was hit by an F-5 tornado in 2007. Rebuilding continues for some while others simply moved away as they had to temporarily relocate in order to have shelter anyway.

The city folk gathered and decided to build "green" as much as possible. This week a home is being constructed of blocks by a German company. The blocks interlock together so no glue nor nails are used. They will later be filled with gravel for insulation. Thermal flywheel maybe, but insulation? I'm a doubter.

http://www.hutchnews.com/Todaystop/Greensburg--German--Eco-Home--1

I'm not trying to detract from Joplin, just trying to illustrate that the rebuilding effort will take years. I've always like Joplin and I wish the residents well.
Greensburg, KS before and after photos.

Just remember....external_link did that to them.

external_link made a statement that the Isrealis should withdrawal from the occupied territories, within 24 hours that tornado hit Joplin, MO.

There are several "coincidences" where a natural disaster hit an area right after a president or head of state made a comment on the negative about Isreal.

If you think I am kidding look it up.

What's keeping them from bulldozing all on a heap and burning it? Haul away the rubble after that.

What the posted pictures don't show, is any of the many areas that ARE in the process of being picked up. They don't show the block after block of closed streets that have clean-up in progress, or the 300 plus clean-up trucks with grapples, loading some of the estimated several millions of cubic feet of debris that was once someones home, business, or church. Remember, the damage path was over 6 miles long, and up to 3/4 of a mile wide, through the heaviest populated part of the town. The twister didn't lift and set back down, it STAYED ON THE GROUND the entire time. It's hard to imagine the scale of destruction by seeing pictures.

I was born and raised in Joplin, and live a few miles north of town. There but for the grace of God go I. We watched the entire event on TV until the power went off in town. Each time we go to church, or town for anything, it takes your breath away. The attached link is the local newspaper. Many good articles can be read to show the spirit and tenacity of my fellow Missourians, and the real story on how fast things are happening. http://www.joplinglobe.com/

The picture below was taken about 1 1/2 hour before the tornado hit, directly above our home, about 12 miles north of the storm track. This is the only time in my life of 52 plus years I've seen these clouds, a very ominous sign of turbulent weather.



Please keep the prayers going, the recovery will take a long time. Mark