Joplin Tornado (Pics)

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   Well for those of you living under a rock, my hometown just had the pleasure of an EF 5 tornado. Cell phones have been all but useless, so finding people has been a logistics nightmare. Currently, there are about 1,500 people missing, 122 confirmed dead, and over 750 injuries. The tornado took out one of the major hospitals in town, blowing out all the windows, throwing medical equipment everywhere, the top floor is destroyed, oxygen tanks on fire and in danger of exploding, it's a mess. Trees, powerlines, and tons and tons of rubble made the roads all but useless. It's estimated that 30% of the city took damage, ranging from broken windows and ripped off shingles, to leaving nothing but the foundation of the house sitting on the lot. Most every public building in the city has been turned into a shelter for people who no longer have homes, or a temporary hospital to treat all of the wounded people. The one remaining hospital is turning anyone away who isn't in life threatening condition, and despite this, they are beyond capacity. Tents have been set up outside the hospital, and we are transporting patients as far away as Arkansas and Kansas City.

Joplin is a pretty small city in comparison to most, we have a population of about 50,000, plus around maybe another 20,000-30,000 in the surrounding towns/areas, so its almost impossible to find someone who doesn't know someone who's died, missing, or completely lost everything they own. I've been helping the clean up effort for the past few days since sunday after the tornados stopped, and I honestly don't have words to describe some of the things I've seen. It's always bad to see things like this on TV, but standing in the middle of it is a surreal experiance. I've lived here for 20 years and I stood near an intersection today for nearly 15 minutes before I recognized where I was. Road signs are gone, powerlines are laying across homes, roads, lawns, cars, etc., I've seen cars bent in half today, semi's laying on top of buildings, honestly, the few pictures I managed to get before my cell phone died don't even begin to do the situation justice. A friend of mine saw half a body on a strecher being pulled out of a house on her way home sunday. I've been very lucky and very fortunate, my house is on the other side of the city, so we were okay. To the best of my knowledge, all my friends are alive. Many of them don't have homes, jobs, or cars anymore, but one thing that we aren't short on is volunteers and donations to help them all. Anyways, I'll get to the pictures.

I'm not going to upload all that many, mainly out of laziness, anyone interested in seeing more should search Joplin on facebook, you'll find hundreds. Again, these photos, even the before and afters, do not do any sort of justice to the feeling of standing in, and sifting through all the rubble here. But here goes...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1390530/Joplin-MO-tornado-Before-photos-complete-devastation.html

I took these with my cellphone while trying to walk to a friends house.

Edited by __sneaky__ - 25 May 2011 at 2:04am