The Joplin, Mo tornado hit about 5:40 pm Sunday May 22, 2011 and was about 12 blocks south from our house. Thank goodness everyone is ok. I was at Freeman hospital which is just a few blocks south of St. Johns hospital which was destroyed when the tornado hit. At Freeman hospital there was banging and roof damage and large trees blown out of the ground but we were able to make our way through the rubble and get home immediately after 6 pm where my wife who currently can't walk and her daughters had taken shelter. Only a few small limbs were blown down around our house. We couldn't tell where we were driving through the mess, except by using St. Johns destroyed smoking building as a reference.
My son Tom was in a 2nd story apartment 2 blocks north of St. Johns Hospital which is just outside this picture. He looked out and saw it bearing down on him and held on to the toilet with all his might and then was able to crawl out of the ruble unharmed and started searching for others. He says he never wants to see anything like that again. As of now all of our family and friends are OK!
The tornado was slow moving less than 20 mph and took out tornado sirens in its path. It took it about 20 minutes to reach the other side of town where my coworkers had some roof sections blown off the buildings while taking cover where they could. Luckily they were just at the edge of it. Security cameras show a lot of wind and debris and garage doors flying around and away. Glad I wasn't there either.
The hospital will be imploded and rebuilt on the other side of town so they're not so close together. It was a miracle that both hospitals weren't destroyed.
update: hospital and schools demolition was postponed a while because of asbestos, surprise surprise anyone? Beyond that, hospital will not be imploded but knocked down with a wrecking ball.
west east
This above pic shows about 8 miles of the f4 and f5 tornado path through Joplin, Mo. You can see how close the 2 hospitals are in the left bottom of the pic. This pic starts about 32nd st & Shifferdecker Ave and ends about the Flying J 32nd st and I-44. Several truck and trailers were turned over on the interstate and at the damaged truck stop. It then dwindled on as a weak tornado to near 3 miles north Granby, Mo. Total path length was 22 miles.
I sat in my hospital bed waiting to be discharged all day after having a stress test that check out ok. I kept thinking how strange those large trees to the north of Freeman hospital were moving around and the wind was very strong all day, it reminded me of The Wizard of Oz where it was so windy before the tornado. The doctor finally showed up to release me at 5:15 pm and said jokingly 'looks like i'm just in time to release you into a tornado' and I said yeah I was afraid of that all day. Then we were locked down and waited in the hall. Boom-bang was heard and some insulation was coming out of the ceiling vents. As we found our way out of the locked down hospital there was some water pouring in here and there from roof damage. I heard a doctor tell as nurse 'it's bad, it's real bad.'
Total count, 158 dead, 1500 injured, 8000 homes and businesses destroyed and 20,000 cars damaged or destroyed. I don't know how it wasn't worse. Driving thru it even now still takes your breath away.