The groups went door to door, making quick checks of property that in many places had been stripped to their foundations or had walls collapse. Teams of searchers fanned out in waves across several square miles. Fires, gas fumes and unstable buildings posed constant threats. Rescue crews had to move gingerly around downed power lines and jagged chunks of debris as they hunted for victims and hoped for survivors. “By the time we tried to get under the house, it already went over us.”Īs rescuers toiled in the debris, a strong thunderstorm lashed the crippled city. “Five minutes later, the second warning went off,” he said. Larry Bruffy said he heard the first warning but looked out from his garage and saw nothing. While many residents had 10 to 17 minutes of warning, rain and hail may have drowned out the sirens. Jay Nixon said he was “optimistic that there are still lives out there to be saved.” An unknown number of people were hurt.ĭespite the grim outlook, Gov. Unlike the multiple storms that killed more than 300 people last month across the South, Joplin was smashed by just one exceptionally powerful twister.Īuthorities were prepared to find more bodies in the rubble throughout this gritty, blue-collar town of 50,000 people about 160 miles south of Kansas City. It was the nation’s deadliest single twister since a June 1953 tornado in Flint, Mich. Fires from gas leaks burned across town, and more violent weather loomed, including the threat of hail, high winds and even more tornadoes. It was the nation’s deadliest single tornado in nearly 60 years and the second major tornado disaster in less than a month.Īuthorities feared the toll could rise as the full scope of the destruction comes into view: House after house reduced to slabs, cars crushed like soda cans, shaken residents roaming streets in search of missing family members. (AP) – Rescue crews dug through piles of splintered houses and crushed cars Monday in a search for victims of a half-mile-wide tornado that killed at least 116 people when it blasted much of this Missouri town off the map and slammed straight into its hospital. The tornado tore a path a mile wide and four miles long destroying homes and businesses. Residents begin digging through the rubble of their home after it was destroyed by a tornado that hit Joplin, Mo.
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