Your Scary Stories Episode #7: Joplin Tornado one of the worst tornados ever

All right, all right, all right, Luke, finally we're gonna get this episode of your Scary Stories going. So technical difficulties. I was behind on editing some video footage and man, we're a little bit late, but it's good to see you, dude. Yeah, it's usually that cat that holds you up. That was not the case tonight. No, no, no, I got him out of the way early. It's dog and some would some would say, some would say yeah. Then then I ran into some technical difficulties right there at the end. Actually, when you started the countdown, I don't know if you know, but I looked over in the corner because my computer started popping up with some sort of weird error on the mic as it was like redownloading drivers for no apparent reason. So yeah, that was a bit scary. I was like, please just be all ready. When I turned this mic back on, creemy part is your we're actually glitching in and out there for a second. Had a demonic voice for about half a second. It was kind of creepy. Well that's unfortunate. Still lagging a little bit, man, I don't know. It must be the internet in your neck of the woods. Must be the name that the alien neighbor, so intersidne your internet connection? Yeah, that might be my computer. I'm on my computer tonight, so Jacks Jax is hardwired to the Internet and mine is Wi Fi. Gotcha? Gotcha? Maybe it'll come back. Maybe we'll work through this glitch. Still lacking a little bit, but I don't know if your voice is lagging. It might just be your video, which is all right. It sits all part of the live stream. Man. You have people popping in from all sorts of different platforms. You're listening to your scary stories, listening and watching your scary stories live the show where we share your scary stories live for everybody to hear. I'm excited for tonight because I've actually got to change it up a little bit. So what I'm gonna do for and you have two stories, right I do? So I have one big and I'm going to split it up in three different event three different breakdowns of it. So I'll do the first part, then you'll do whatever. We'll break it down like we usually do. But that's how I'm going to go through the steps this evening. So sounds good, yep. Let me see if I can get some music eto tonight, it's going to be a little bit different. I will not be sharing a story about demons or goblins or ghost or deer, which seemed to be a reoccurring thing on this show for some reason. Deer, I don't I don't know animals. But this is actually a little bit different because and I'm curious to see what you all think of this. So yeah, make sure you let me know. I'm going to share a story. And this was actually suggested by a listener. I'll give it to shout out to Steve Carroll for the suggestion on this. It is about a tornado that hit Choppolin, Missouri. It's a very bad tornadic event happened in Joplin, Missouri. And that's what I'm going to share today. So what I'll do is I'll go through the first part of this and we'll go from there. But yeah, Jopolin is a city in Jasper and Newton Counties in southwestern corner of the US state of Missouri. Lead was discovered in Joplin Creek Valley before the Civil War, but only after the war did significant development take place. So therefore that's how this city becomes in development. By eighteen seventy one, numerous mining camps spring up in the valley, and resident John Seacawks filed a plane for the city in the East Valley. Cox wanted to name this place Joplin City, after the spring and Creek that's nearby. The bulk of this city is in Jasper County, while southern portion is in Newton County. Joplin is the largest city located within both of those counties, with a population of fifty two thousand people as of the year twenty twenty. It's the thirteenth most populated city in Missouri. City covers an area of thirty six square miles, so it's no by no means a small city where this event happens. The twenty eleven chop On tornado was a large, devastating, multi vortex tornado that struck Joplin, Missouri, United States, on the evening of Sunday, May two, two thy and eleven. It was the first F five tornado to occur in Missouri since May twentieth, nineteen fifty seven, when a F five destroyed several suburbs of Kansas City. It was the third tornado to actually strike Joplin since nineteen seventy one. On the evening of May twenty first, twenty eleven, at excuse me, eight pm Central Time, the National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center issued a slight risk of severe weather for the following day for much of the upper Plains in the Midwest. By eight am the following day, on the twenty second, forecasters at the Storm Prediction Center realized that a more intense weather outbreak was likely to occur and upgraded the large area that had previously been to a moderate risk. Now fast forward three and a half hours to eleven thirty am Central Time. A public severe weather outlook was issued at this time, and the outlook stated that severe weather was expected that afternoon, with tornadoes, large hail, strong wind all named as threats. At one thirty PM, four hours prior to the tornado, the Storm Prediction Center issued a tornado watch for southwestern Missouri to remain in effect until nine PM that evening. The watch predicted the following explosive thunderstorm development with a strong tornado or two highly possible thunderstorms began developing between two and three PM over southeast Kansas. They quickly became severe and as the thunderstorm development continued moving east, forecasters became more concerned about tornadic development. Thunderstorm west of Joplin that eventually produced the IFI tornado was first issued at five seventeen PM Central Time, seventeen minutes before it touched down and nineteen minutes before it entered the city of Joplin. The tornado first touched down in Newton County, Missouri, just east of the Missouri Kansas state line, approximately one half mile southwest of the intersection of South Central City Road thirty second Street. At five thirty four. Eyewitnesses and stormchasers reported multi vortex rotating around the parent circulation. Here's the tornado down several large trees at an EF zero intensity. Civil defense sirens sounded in jop One twenty minutes before the tornado struck in response to the tornado warning at five point seventeen. The following counties were issued for that tornado warning. It was Newton and Jasper Counties, which we talked about earlier, is where Joplin is and southwest portions of the counties that surrounded. But many Joplin residents did not fill the need to react even though there were sirens. The tornado and it will also cut myself off there. There is a lot of tornado activity in southwest Missouri. It's Tornado Alley area, so I think they probably do become a little bit numb to this. Okay. The tornado had just developed and moved east to northeast and strength into an e F one intensity as it continued through rural areas towards Joplin, snapping trees and power bowls and damaging outbuildings widening. The tornado then tracked into a more densely populated southwest corner of the city, near Twin Hills Country Club. It heavily damaged several homes at a subdivision in this area at this point, up to an e F three strength. The tornado continued to cause EF three damage as it moved through another subdivision just east of Iron Gates Road. Numerous homes were destroyed and multiple vehicles tossed around, some of which were thrown onto or rolled into homes. The tornado reached E four intensity just before crossing south Scheffendecker Avenue at five thirty six pm. The tornado produced its first area of EF four damage only four minutes after touching down, as several small but well built commercial buildings were flattened. Consistent EF four to e F five damage was non as it continued through southern Joplin. Numerous home businesses and medical buildings were flattened in this area, with concrete walls collapsed and crushed into the foundations. A large steel reinforced step and floor structure leading into a completely destroyed medical building was deflected upwards several inches in crack. Steel trustles from some of the buildings were rolled up like paper. Multiple vehicles were thrown and mangled or wrapped around trees nearby. Several three hundred pound concrete parking stops anchored with reebar were torn from the parking lot in this area and thrown up to one hundred yards away. An Iowa State University wind engineer calculated the force needed to remove those parking stops from the lot. The wind requirements to do that would be exceeding two hundred and twenty miles an hour. Damage became remarkably widespread and catastrophic at and around the nearby Saint John's Region Medical Center, which lost nearly every window on three sides, interior walls, ceilings, and part of its roof. Its flight rescue helicopter was also blown away and destroyed. This caused five casualties and nine story buildings were damaged so bad and later on it would be these buildings would deem structurally compromised and then had to be torn down. According to the National Weather Service, such extreme structural damage such as large and well built structures, likely indicated winds that exceeded two hundred and thirty miles an hour. Vehicles in the hospital parking lot were thrown into the air and mangled beyond recognition, including a semi truck that was tossed one hundred and twenty five yards and wrapped completely around a deep bark tree. Small debris from hospital, including X rays, medical reports, and dental records, were found in and the surrounding counties around that area, many whiles to the east. Wind rowing of debris was noted in this area, and more concrete parking stops were removed from the parking lot by the tornado. Virtual every house near mcleland Boulevard and twenty sixth Street was flattened, somewhere completely swept away, and trees sustained severe debarking. At this point in time, I'm going to share the first video that kind of goes along with these timelines of this let me see coming across the Kansas border and now just about to make it to the Joplin area. We also have some showers and storms across northern Arkansas. Please do take heap get in your tornado shelters right now. We can't stress this enough. Okay, where you're gonna give that? Wait, wait, get firth going to It's gonna do it yet further, not here. I'm thick. But stop, stop, stop, it's coming towards us. Oh wait, okay, hol on. Oh I see, I say, I see, I see. We're getting closer. We're gonna get closer. We're gonna get closer. Watch stop, stop, stop, field closer, You're going to get closer. I think it's right there. I know, I know it's right there. I know. But we can get closer. Oh my gosh, we'll don your wind, We'll do on your window. Let's do it. Okay, hold on, I'm getting big. That's huge. Tell you that's going because I'm watching a strong, large tornado heading for the south side of one and I. Chief Randalls had the advised that we would be waiting before we send anyone out for any of their vehicles out for search and rescue, drinking one big queen dream honoring Fine, now you can have that line. Yeah, it kind of goes slow and don't keep high out because we're not sure where don't or where it head is a corneto on over morning, Gary corn over barn dream. You got a way out. I don't know where I am. I don't know where I am. It's across the road, he said, Oh gosh, okay, got it there. Oh my gosh, Oh my gosh, there it is there it is. This is doing my and the hardest job. Man. Ask where we're going. Joplin, twenty six fifteen. We have a house that has been struck at top of the house has come down on the people. Oh god, you house none none, Golvin's gone, gone right gone, all right, you get so the storm has just moved into the city at this point in the story. Your thoughts so far as crazy. This footage courtesy the Weather Channel and National Weather Service. Actually you got to see in real time how fast this thing went from basically like a rope string tornado to a massive tornado that later we'll get into the size somewhere, But did you see how fast that happened. Yeah, that was nuts. I knew where it was going because I remember when this happened and everything. That was a crazy time. But yeah, when I saw that just now, I was like, Man, you can't really trust things not to get worse. If there's a bad you know, anything like that, you need to get away as fast as possible. It was talking about the police were not planning on sending any rescue forces out till this is over, right, which is very smart, but they already had as you saw one of the officers dash cam, people that were stuck out in the storm. That was crazy. This is another thing we always talk about these like talk about like ghost stories or or other strange things. This is truly something that's very terrifying. We talk about EF four EF five storms. They produced the equivalent damage of an atomic bomb. Right, So what has just started and what we've just got into here is the making of something. There's not many more dangerous things that can happen in the world than what's happening. It's like in times, level of damage just crazy. Yes, literally, we're seeing just right now, as it starts and builds strength, we're seeing things already getting flattened and it's just now starting to enter the city of Joplin, Missouri. This was a time period where there was a lot of storms, outbreaks and tornadoes. This year twenty eleven, I'm trying to remember, and it may been the following year, but nevertheless, here in Indiana where I live, there was a one in Henryville, a town in southern Indiana. And that's actually when I was living in southern Indiana. There was pretty similar damage. Kind of me back in the city I was actually in that tornado wasn't there, but there was a tornado that day. Yeah, Like it kind of takes me back to where a tornado was just a few miles from you, right, I mean, yeah, I remember that. It was like a couple of stretch of a few years there. Well, there it just seemed like there was way too many tornadoes going and I remember, like, you know, thinking, man, what the heck is going on here? Absolutely terrifying. You have no control over this. There's nothing you could do besides trying to get somewhere safe. I will say, though, I will say just talking about I don't know the the top of my head what the average lead time is for getting a warning and the sirens and all that. But it seems like they had a pretty decent lead time here. They at least knew that. Yeah, there was a chance of it early on, but typically I don't think storms even get fifteen minute people get fifteen minute notice for a tornado. I mean that, I think that's pretty good. But still, though, you just start thinking about something so bad gonna happen. How much is fifteen minutes really? I mean, you can't get your car packed up in fifteen minutes, Yeah, not with not with everything that you want to take with you. Yeah's actually a family you know whatever, You definitely can't. Yeah, like I said, slightly different story from what you usually do, but terrifying. Man, That to me is this is this is scary. I don't know anything much more scary than this. I think I'll take your haunted deer and you talked about last couple of weeks. I got some some more similar stuff to that tonight. Oh well, yeah, we'll jump back into that of course here again in a minute. But yeah, I think we did a pretty good jobs set in the stage for the beginning of that very much. So, yeah, that was crazy. Cuew it up for you before I actually start that story. I actually did want to address a story we had a couple of weeks ago with the Teddy Bear. Yeah, because Jack had made some new thumbnails and stuff like that. I actually knew I had it on my work bench and I wanted to show it real fast. This little device here, Wi Fi enabled camera that you can stick into anything about fifteen to twenty dollars on Amazon anyone, except like little cameras like that. So just just a river. These things exist, They're easy to get a hold of, and I have it for a completely harmlest reason. Wow, that's uh, I'm just curious. I think the world want to know what you plan on done with that. Oh it's for a ghosts Okay, well maybe maybe that'll be a thing, and I don't know. Yeah, at some point we'll build like an ultimate ghost detector saying and iky camera. So they have apps for that, but I'm not sure how much I can trust them, you know, I don't at all. That's why I want to make it. The messobes are around me. Want to try one of the apps though, Yeah, no matter where I'm at, Yeah, all right, floor's yours man. Yeah, So tonight, the first story I have is the second story from the truck driver lady that I talked about last week. She was one that encountered the White Dog, and she's back with another one. This one, she said, took place sometime after and she said, I don't remember the exact date because she's writing things, but she remembered happening later on. After I was in Nevada for the first time, I headed up the west coast to Washington State. It's beautiful there. The mountains were simply breathtaking. I drove right past mountain Hood and Oregon. It stopped right outside of Olympia, Washington. It is a rather quick trip, but I always wanted to go back there. After my stopped in Washington, I went south to Oregon again and straight east through Montana to Wisconsin. I usually don't get a lot of cross country trips like that. When I do, I really enjoy them. It's nice to drive for days at a time and just see the sights. On my way to Montana, I drove over the western side through Bowsmen, right over the mountains. It's getting late in the evening. As I crested the final mountain into the Rockies, the sunset casting a pink and orange glow over the western sky if I can help it. I never liked to drive at night, but sometimes you just have to. In this slighte of work, I rounded a bend and saw a small rest area with a large gravel lot in a restroom. Perfect, I thought to myself. I slowed my truck, put my blanker on, and pulled over, parking close to the small bathrooms. There were no other vehicles here and very little traffic on the road. It was almost dark outside, the last rays of sunlight pouring through my windshield to get myself settled in and ready for bed, when I suddenly heard a knocking on my door. This was highly unusual. I've had people knock on my door before, but that was usually if I was parked not so legally at a truck stop, walking someone, or otherwise in the way. But I clearly saw that there was no one else here with me. I should have been alone. I was back in the sleeper berth part of the truck, so I didn't see who was at the door. I was hesitant to answer it. I stepped up front, sat in the driver's seat, grabbing my pocket knife. Just in caves. It was dark in the cash or whoever was out there, I couldn't see what I was doing. I rolled the window down just enough to see them, but not all the way. Yes, I asked. The person standing on the ground beside my truck was tall, maybe a little too tall. He looked more or less like a normal man. He was wearing a black and red button up flannel shirt, blue jeans, with brown boots. He just looked like a hitchhiker. He looked up at me with a seriously creepy smile, and I regretted rolling down my window. Evening ma'am. He started, My truck broke down a few miles from here. I was wondering if you could get me a ride into town. He didn't stop smiling the whole time he spoke. It was really unnerving. His teeth looked sharper than humans should be. I said, I'm sorry, that's against company policy. That wasn't a lie. It definitely was against company policy. But there was no way I'll let him into my truck. I don't need to go that far, said this dude, the small town a few miles away. Sorry, I'm not comfortable doing that, but good luck. I rolled the window up trifle, checking that my doors were locked. As an added measure, I looped the seat belts through the door handles and buckled them trick I learned from my trainer. Man turned and walked away, so Washington go expecting to see him walking down the road. He didn't. He stepped over a small barbed wire fence that separated the mountainous terrain from the parking lot and walked off into the woods. I noticed something that didn't notice before when he was standing close to my truck. There was something wrong with how he walked. I couldn't place it, but it was like his legs bent in two places instead of just one. That made my stomach churn. I really didn't want to stay the rest of the night, but my clock was out, which I mean I couldn't drive it until I took a ten hour break, so I reluctantly bedded down for the night back on my truck. Locking windows did a good job of help me feel safe. I was confident he wouldn't be able to open the doors even if they were unlocked. I was hoping the night would go on without incident. I was wrong. Quickly fell asleep despite the strange encounter, only moments before but something woke me up. A while later. It was dark and silent in my cab. I lay there trying to figure out what woke me up. I strained my ears to listen, and I heard it, A gentle tapping noise like nails on glass, and intily knew it was coming from up front, but I was too scared to move. I had a bad feeling it was that strange man from before. Why would he be tapping on my window. It's okay, I tried to tell myself. He can't get in. Doors are locked and secure. Good thing I did, because just a moment later, I heard a large, loud banging on the door. It was deafening. I couldn't I leave. The glass did crack under the pressure. It jolted me the high alert. I felt my heart racing in my chest. Didn't know what to do. I was in the middle of nowhere. I had no idea how long police would take to respond. Out here all I had to defend myself with a small two inch long pocket knife, and I did not want to open my door. As I stood there, frozen with indecision, the wild knocking finally stopped. Held my breath, unable to move until I knew whatever was out there was gone. Heard nothing for several moments that high pitch metal scraping sound from the same door as a banging, and then silence. Faintly heard footsteps in the gravel that seemed to grow more and more distant until they ceased altogether. It took me several minutes to slow my heartbeat until I got the nerve to peek out for my curtains to see if anything was out there. I saw nothing in the small gravel a lot, which gave me some relief. I didn't really want to stay there for the rest of the night, but I had no choice. I checked my phone saw it read one thirty two AM. I cursed the guy for waking me up and the moment myself as I went back to sleep. So I fell asleep, and luckily the rest of the night went by silently. The next morning, he woke up as the sun was rising. Comfort of daylight made me feel safe, even though the parking lot was still empty and I was still alone. When I stepped out of my truck, staring at the oddly shaped footprints of the pebbles, I looked at my door on the side were three long, thin, evenly spaced scratch marks gouged into my door. They looked at the first glance to be claw marks. The more I looked at him, the more they could only be claw marks. I got the hell out of there as fast as I could, and I tried really hard to never go through that area of Montana again. This experience freaked me out a lot. There were so many things wrong about the guy who talked to me if he needed help? Oh, why did he walk off of the woods? Why did his legs look like that? All very valid questions. Man, truck driving is so creepy. What's up with near two am? That's when bad stuff happened? Somebody said, you know, here's the thing I hear a couple different approaches to this truck driving. A lot of truck drivers actually prefer to drive at night because less traffic you could kind of travel more efficiently, quicker. Yeah, but it also depends why you're hauling and where you're taking it and what that place is out. Yeah, there's a lot of factors that go into it. But a lot of times the will established truckers alone there in trucks, So that's not the case with her. Doesn't seem like she's driving for a company using their vehicles. So she had a very valid point, which you really can't there's probably policies against hitchhikers. There are a few points of this story that I feel like give it some validity. The techniques you use for putting the seat belt through the door handle a hold of shut pretty smart. I like that. Yeah. Well, I had a cousin who was a truck driver. You family has truck drivers. Oh yeah, yeah, So I had a cousin that was a truck driver for a period of time and he was told to do that when he was pulling off on the side of you know, someplace, sleeping for the night. And I remember hearing that when I was like twelve, fourteen years old, you know, somewhere around there. So it was a wild ago, but I remember that's part. The other thing is obviously the time clock. She mentions that she needed to to pull over and sleep for a certain amount of time, and that's a real thing that truck drivers have to do by law. Oh yeah, it's pretty it's it's much more enforced nowadays. Yeah. Yeah, So, like you know, these parts of the story are definitely true. Parts that make give it a little more gravitas, you know, like a little more realism. And I do believe something happened to her there, and this is not just like something she made up for the road. You know, whether or not it was somebody super natural or this guy wasn't it, you know, a freak that wanted to like carve with a knife or something into her door. Uh yeah, that's whatever, but still definitely scary. Yeah, it seemed like the person really wanted to creep her out. I don't know, like if that's a full out effort to break in, but it's definitely a very They went very far to scare her, to actually damage your vehicle scrape it. Obviously they were trying to scare it, tapping on the door and whatever else, but didn't seem like they And where where was she parked at when this happened? At like a stop, a rest stop in Montana? Yeah, so she's actually parked somewhere where you're supposed to be. We see truckers a lot of times, they kind of park wherever. Yeah, so it's not like, hey, I parked in the middle on the on the shoulder of the exit ramp or something. Yeah, actually parked or rest stop which is made for which is made for that. So yeah, person's trolling trolling her around on the rest stop. I guess what I'm saying. It's kind of it's it's pretty creepy. I'm sure it's Montana, so maybe it's pretty roal. Maybe there weren't many vehicles there either, you know, I don't know. Yeah, the traffic was like that night. Yeah, and depends if you're near a capital where you're at exactly, it could be very few vehicles trucks excuse me, we're there, so which makes it easier for them to creep around her vehicle at night. Yeah, someone said, just pretend like you're asleep. I guess that's what she did. I don't know she did it first. Yeah, yeah, anyway, can you imagine not so back in the day when I hear a lot of film members talk about truck driving, there wasn't cell phones, cbe radio stuff like that. So really it's much more difficult to react back then compared to now as far as calling somebody, et cetera. But in the moment, you still though, like there's a human instinct where I just need to be quiet, not be heard. And that is something that as always the wrong thing to do. Yeah. Yeah, then again, I don't know, Like screaming and stuff might not do hear any well, but calling the cops or and and then again they're not I don't know how quick they're gonna be able to respond to. Some of these places are pretty rule. You get north, and especially out west, it's much further get the bases. It makes our neck of the woods like a look like a metropolis. Yeah, it's crazy. The further east you get, you could go up the whole East coast in like a day easily. You can't just drive out throughout the west in a day. Hey, I don't know. I can't imagine being just having all that time to yourself and your mind too. I'm sure it makes everything that much more creepy, act crazier than them. Somebody said, what do you think about that strategy, Luke, I actually kind of like that strategy. Is that like the member Mel Gibson when he did that in signs yes to get that clip. Maybe that's something we need. We need that clip, Yes we do. But don't they like pick up weapons or like a baseball bat or something, and they're like we're gonna run around the house and meet each other in the back or whatever. Yeah, and he's just yelling like he's just Melgibs and just shelling like I'm an I agree man out of my mind. Yeah, yeah, yelling crazy stuff. It works, It works. Yeah, whatever whatever you gotta do to get those people out of you, you know, I don't know. That was awesome. So that's pretty uh scary though. You're on the road by yourself and you never know what's going to happen out here. So many crazy trucker stories. That is nothing compared to some of the crazy ones out there, but to her, probably the most terrifying thing. And it sounds like she has more story. Maybe she has more stories besides the couple you shared. She definitely has a couple more. Can you imagine the shit you'd see though, Oh yeah, no kidding, Like having a truck or friend that'll send me pictures of some of the people he sees the rest stops. I think you said one the other day with this big old, big old man wearing this huge night gown. Like you just never know as you travel throughout the world what you're gonna see. And some of these people that are truck drivers are truck drivers for a reason, right, they might prefer that. Yeah, they might not be the most socially gifted person. Maybe they're doing that for a reason. So I can imagine it's much more weird if you're kind of socially awkward than you have somebody trying to chat you up. They want to ride for you, then they don't listen to you when you say no. So I guess it's time for me to pick back up. What do you absolutely? And I'm looking forward to hearing more of this ornado and Joplin, Missouri, where it's reaching peak intensity. As the tornado track eastward, it maintained e F five strength as it crossed Main Street Route forty three between twentieth and twenty sixth Street. It heavily damaged every business along the stretch and virtually destroyed several institutional buildings. It tracked just south of downtown, narrowly missing it. Entire neighborhoods were leveled in this area, with some more home swept completely away, and some trees were even stripped completely of their bark. At the residences, reinforced concrete porches were deformed or in some cases completely blown away. Damage to driveways was noted at some residents as well. Ground score when that does that to the ground, that's like when they rate go back and they rate storms tornadoes. The damage they can just do to the ground is part of how they rate these. So the fact that this storm is destroying the ground as significant, which it takes a lot to do that. Numerous vehicles were tossed up to several blocks, and a few homeowners actually never located their vehicle again. A large church, a nursing home, Franklin Technology Centered, Saint Mary's Catholic Church and school, and Joplin High School were all destroyed along this corridor. The Greenbrier nursing Home was completely leveled, with twenty one fatalities occurring there alone. No one was in the high school at this time, luckily, because the high school had just graduated and that day they actually had their graduation ceremony, but they held it about five miles away at five miles north of there at Missouri Southern State University. You got to assume that that's very significant and fortunate that nobody was in school when this happened. I can't imagine what it would have been this is. At the school, pieces of cardboard were found embedded in one of the few or many walls that were standing. Carboard embedded in the walls. Yeah, that's absolutely insane. Around the school, street beams and pieces of fencing were deeply embedded into the ground and filled near still. Fence posts were bent to the ground in opposite directions, and a school bus was thrown into a nearby bus garage. As the tornado crossed Connecticut Avenue further to the east, it destroyed several large apartment buildings, a Dylon's grocery store, and a bank. Only the concrete safety deposit box vault remained at the bank, everything else was completely gone. A wooden two by four was speared completely through a concrete curb near this locate. The tornado then approached Range Line Road, the main commercial strip in the eastern part of Joplin, affecting additional neighborhoods along twentieth Street in the corridor between thirteenth and thirty second Streets. The tornado continued producing catastrophic damage as it reached its widest point. Tornado at this point was nearly a mile wide cross As the tornado struck a pizza hut on South Range Online Road store manager Christopher Lucas gathered four employees and fifteen customers into the walk in freezer. With difficulty closing the door, he wrapped a bungee cord holding the door shut. On the other side, he wrapped it around his arm. He was sucked completely out and killed by the tornado. When this happened, the tornado completely destroyed a Walmart supercenter and Home Depot and numerous other businesses and restaurants in this area, most of which were flattened. Numerous metal roof trustles were thrown from the Home Depot building and were found broken and mangled in nearby fields. Cars that were originated at the home Depot parking lot were found hundreds of yards away. Asphalt was ripped from the parking lots of wal Mart and a nearby pizza restaurant, and large tractor trailers were thrown over two hundred yards and Academy Sports, an outdoor store along Range Line, sustained major structural damage and a chair was actually found with all four legs pulled first into one of the remaining wall that was there. A nearby three story apartment complex was also devastated and two cell phone towers had collapsed in During this In the area, numerous cars were thrown and piled on top of each other. One hundred pound man hole covers were removed from roads and thrown the ground once again damaged, and a PEPSI distribution plant was completely leveled. Additional calculations with regards to the manhole covers by the Ohio State Universe City Went engineer that we referred to earlier revealed that the wind had to exceed two hundred twenty miles an hour for the manhole covers to be removed. Many fatalities occurred in this area and the damage was raided as EF five. Extreme damage continued in this area through southeast Jopland. Many houses and industrial and commercial buildings were flattened in this area as well. The industrial park near the corner of twentieth was especially hit hard, with nearly every building flatten. Several large metal warehouse structures were swept cleanly from their foundation, and several heavy industrial vehicles were thrown up to four hundred yards away in this area. One of the many warehouses affected was a Cummins warehouse, a concrete block and still building that was destroyed. The last area of EFI damage occurred in the industrial park, and a nearby gas station inconvenience store was completely destroyed. Many homes were destroyed further to the east at EF three and EF four strength, and a year by subdivision and East Middle School sustained major damage. Weakening and dissipated at this point in time. The tornado then continued on an east southeast directory towards I forty four, where it weakened. Nonetheless, vehicles were blown off the highway and mangled near US seventy one on what is now I forty nine interchange. The damage and around the interchange was rated EF two EF three. The weakening tornado continued to track into rural areas of south eastern Jasper in northeastern Newton County, where damage was generally minor to moderate, with trees, mobile homes, outbuilding and frame homes damaged at EF zero to EF one strength. The tornado lifted east of Diamond at six twenty pm. According to aerial surveys, the track length was twenty one point six two miles long and the tornado was up to one mile whitest point a total and we'll get to this a little bit total, one hundred and fifty eight people were killed and over one thy one hundred and fifty others were injured along the path. I'll play a video now and the next part of this will actually go to the aftermath. But this is some of the footage that was occurring during this stuff we just covered Lilli the CAZy RG twenty four hour Storm Center. Homes are damaged in Joplin. One guy just called up de says his home was totaled. So I just had another caller say, a couple of houses damaged over by Saint John's Hospital. I think our death told would have probably been much higher if it had the down offer down Q forty forty four. Well, that was a civilian using our radio. Was a civilian using our radio. It was three seven feet hit Hall that she recalled from what in her last contact with Officer Water. The last area was moving Nos up, sun is up, Tarling's out, goings down, go back the way you came, going on on to go east, really really bad. That's going riding downtown, dropping downtown. Watching this on your CAZy er G storm track of radar, and that is a big area concerned. Tornado warning is still in effect until six thirty what you got there were welcome don to church. We do damage the staking part. Yeah yeah, you guys. Yeah yeah. Everybody's just trying to get through it. It's not only is it scary, it's sad. Yeah. These people are completely powerless, pretty crazy. When the cop car is found, uh destroyed in the civilians following officer down on the radio, that's crazy. You hear that. You hear somebody saying, is that a civilian on our radio? So yeah, once, what do you even do? There's nothing you can do. You just try to be as safe as you can. I don't I don't know you can. I literally don't know what you can do. Yeah, that's that's ridiculous. It puts things into perspective. You know. All times you you think about like different to as you have to deal with, and then you see people go through stuff like that, and then like it's just you can't even compare, you know. Yeah, it's kind of like your sad stories is what it should be called. To night. It also puts my stories in perspective because I'm talking about like monsters probably don't exist, maybe, but at the same time, you know, this thing doesn't exist. It exists a lot. It's not a damn thing you can do about it. No, And it is a monster on its own A mile wide, Yeah, but a mile white is insane. It's huge. And it keeps talking about the ground being torn up. I guess like trying to think of the word they use for that, but it seems to be like if this thing can rip up asphalt, that's very bad. What else said? It grabbed the uh, the manhole covers. Yeah, I ripped out the manhole covers. I think it through something. What was this here? Industrial vehicles were thrown up to four one hundred yards. Yeah, that doesn't even make sense, Like, how is that physically possible? Leveled a PEPSI distribution plant that you said the manhole covers. It takes at least two hundred twenty miles an hour to win to do that, and along the way it's destroying neighborhoods. It found a chair le a chair is excuse me? The legs of the chair were impalled completely into the wall, all four legs. Did I also say it put two by four through a concrete Yeah, it said it put it. It stuck it clear into a concrete curb. Just stick it out of there into it phyticlarly possible. That doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make any sense. But what it is is when the wind strength is simply that strong, it can happen. It can blow a card into brick. What makes it so scary and dangerous is this particular storm was moving at times ten miles an hour, which is absurd. Typically these things will move it, I don't know, thirty forty fifty miles an hour. So this storm was moving ten miles an hour, which is not so Imagine this wide, a mile long wide storm moving ten miles an hour. It's a basically probably feels like it's sitting on you, and it was an assault. It was a siege. It's sucking up more and more debris that it's then using as Basically it's basically a deadly weapon at that point in time, any flying around. I mean it breaks all laws of like what we believe is possible because of how crazy it is. Yeah, I was actually looking it up while you're reading. I had heard this before, but it means we should bring it up. In the US. All tornadoes in the entire planet happened in the US. Yeah, and everywhere else they're usually like, yeah, zero whenever there is a tornado, right, we were the only country a planet that has these nightmarish tornadoes there. Yeah, they're France from some countries have had them, but they're very rare, super rare. Yeh. But here it seems to be this particular city. I think it said it had uh what I say, three tornadoes in the last forty years. None of them obviously were comparable with this, but yeah, but it's it's interesting, like there was no There's this guy on online. This is a little bit of a tangent, but he talked about how he came. He used to live in England and he moved here and he saw the storms we have and he was like, what is wrong with you people that you he would live here. It's funny that you say that, because there was a when I was looking into some of this footage, there was a guy from California that was the first time that day. He had only he moved there two weeks before. He had never heard a tornado, He had never been a tornado warning, you know. He was I think he said thirty something when he moved, so this was just traumatizing him. But he didn't even know. He was actually the one earlier in the footage where he said, like, where do we go? And I think they went in the closet and then the power went out immediately. Uh, Like literally didn't know what to do, right, It's not something you think about unless you're obviously we know here what to do how we react those completely different. This is a city that in an area that's prone to tornadoes, right, but not prepared for something like this. You can't be and we'll get into it in the aftermath part. When you go to like Oklahoma City, there's so many tornadoes of great strength that travel a very similar path from like more Oklahoma City that area, and they have a whole other building code on how they build home build homes there. This area is not quite up to that, and we'll get into that a little bit. But yeah, I don't think you can be prepared for something like this. No, and I don't think. I don't. I don't know if you picked up on it. But we've also at this point in the story identified that the fire stations have been taken out, the hospital was on the it was in the beginning part of the town. And we'll get to that in the aftermath, So systematically this thing has it's damaged communications, their search and rescueability. Then they're medical say systematically Yeah, of course I didn't mean to, but it almost seems like it does seem like as a creature, right, Yeah, you take out all those things, what are people going to do? Yeah, And some of this footage that we're seeing, obviously it's not the worst of the things that happened. And when you see this aftermath, it'll blow your mind. But it's because they couldn't. The people that could have probably filmed the worst are dead, to be honest, Yeah, or didn't have probably couldn't physically do it. So these areas that we're seeing were really bad. But I'm I don't want to say I'm excited, but I'm excited to share with you what the aftermath is, just so everybody watching you can get the whole grasp of it. That. Yeah, we're live across all social media. We have some people saying, what a massive force force of nature, What a scary, dangerous thing. All you can do is duck and cover. Yeah, and then somebody points out that a lot of times, Yeah, and we'll cover that a lot of times. These things cause fires, electrical issues and other things. What the person's saying, it's a lengthy comment, but they're saying that the this is just the first part of it. It's what comes next to and we'll get to some of that. Absolutely, this is a nightmare. Yeah, yeah, I agree, man, you're up next. All right. Well, I got another spooky story that doesn't have to do with horrors of nature. This one is called Don't talk about the skin Walkers. Yeah, I bring the skin Walkers back. All right. He starts off like this, I have a story. It isn't mine, but it happened to my uncle. He used to tell his story a lot, and it's always scared the lights out of me. We live in Utah and my uncle Mark went on mission at nineteen for the Church of Latter day Saints. They sent him to an Indian reservation in Arizona. They paired him up with a companion named Carl. When they first got there, there was a huge rift with the locals on the reservation. With them being there, they didn't want my uncle and Carl staying on the reservation grounds. Eventually they came to a compromise. They had to stay on the Outskirts Trailer Reservation wasn't very big. It was located next to a heavily wooded area. The first night, they were trying to sleep when all of a sudden, their trailer started to shake violently back and forth. Startled and not sure what was happening, they climbed underneath their table for cover. Mark could distinctly hear someone pushing it from both sides of the trailer, like a group of people. After about five minutes, it stopped. The next day they made their rounds on the reservation and were talking to the locals. Carl made a comment to one of the families that their trailer was shaking that night before. The family got very quiet and then told them they had to leave. They thought it was strange, but didn't think much of it. Next night it happened again. They awoke to a trailer shaking back and forth, and again they climbed undereath the table until it stopped. This went on two more nights. Anytime they tried to talk to anyone about it, they got quiet and told them to leave. Mark started thinking that due to the tension of their arrival, the locals were doing this to scare them off. The reservation. They didn't go into a convenience store, and they were talking together about how frustrated they were with the situation. The clerk overheard and said they can't talk about it. It's forbidden. Confused, they asked him, can't talk about what? The guy continues down about the skinwalkers. He says, they're evil demons that were once Native American witches. They talk about it, the skin walkers will come for their souls. They walked out of there baffled. They thought it wasn't their scare tactoric. So that night, when they shaking started again, my uncle decided to be brave and confront them. He went to the trailer door, flew it open, and yelled hey. When he did that, he saw three animals run off. Two were a wolf, one was a bear, But they looked strange. Some of their features were almost human like, so he watched them run towards the trees. All three stood up on two legs and walked slowly towards the trees, making a human cat clean laugh. Scared so bad, they called their mission president the next morning and asked to be moved. They relocated that day. For a year, nothing happened. One day, they announced that Carl was being relocated to another city and Mark was getting a new companion. His name was Jimmy, and drive about an hour to pick Jimmy up from the airport. The road they traveled went through the boundaries of the reservation. They arrived about eight pm and met Jimmy, and then they went to leave. The mission president tells Jimmy, we're driving through a dangerous area at night, so we can't make any stops. If you need to use the restaurroom, you need to go now. Jimmy goes, I'm fine. The mission president gets serious enough to even freak out Mark, I'm not kidding. Go to your business. Jimmy was assistant that he was Needy's restaurant. To hit the road. After about thirty minutes into the drive, Jimmy starts complaining he needs to pee. Mission president says, we can't stop here. You have to hold it. Jimmy says he can't hold it, So the President stops the car and says, okay, but you will do your business next to the door, and if I say get in the car, you better get in the car fast. With a look of confusion, Jimmy says, all right, opensar starts to appea. About five seconds later, the mission president says nothing, grabs Jimmy and yanks him into the car and floors it. Jimmy and my uncle start freaking out. What's going on? Mission president says nothing, It just increases his speed. All of a sudden, my uncle sees something running next to the car. To his right, a giant wolf looking man was running on two feet next to the car. Mark looked at this, going over sixty miles an hour, and it's still increasing. The wolf creature kept right next to the car for ten minutes until it finally took coff in to the trees, shaking. Jimmy gets out of the car. When they arrived, it didn't speak to the whole ordeal. It says, what did I just see? The mission president says, next time I tell you to take care of your business, you take care of your business. I think it's safe to say Jimmy didn't just pee when that happened, probably pro to not. I will say that some people had commented on this. They said that they were also missionaries in that area, and they said it was the original person that posted it said that it was in the eighties when this happened. They were a missionary. Later this other person was, and they said they knew exactly the area they were talking about because of the forest that they mentioned, and they said that they also saw things out there. They didn't encounter the skin walkers, but they encountered other super natural things, and so they they corroborated the whole thing, saying that there was definitely something that they encountered themselves. And I will also say another person in commented said they encountered something very similar. But in Iraq. They said that there was a wolf like man on the edge of their camp one night when they were on dude duty. He radioed it in and the people radio back said, we know, don't shoot it wolf bear man. Yeah, told him not to shoot it. Why could make it worse? The other thinking, I think so, And they said they eventually ran offensive the night. So, going back to the beginning of the story, when they're in this trailer and it feels like it's getting shook from both sides, like I can picture this. Although the trailer's not light, you could definitely fill multiple people on both sides pushing, especially if it was like on blocks or not. Obviously these aren't like well, we're talking about tornadoes. Also in this episode, these things are anchored to the ground. Ye, I'm going to get more like a camper trailer. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking too when I heard that. So probably just maybe on wheels or just blocks when this at this point. But nevertheless, they opened the door and they see a wolf, a bear and what was the other one? It was two wolves and a bear. Yeah, wolves and bears don't hang out, no, no, the job. So the first of all, that's terar Okay, So if I opened my damn door and I saw it, forget my trailer getting pushed. If I opened my door and I saw a wolf and a bear, that'd be terrifying as soon as you start hanging out of those Yeah, I think if I see one of those things by themselves ter Yeah, they also out. I wonder what kind of bear was his Kodiak bear. I had to get Geneo involved. I don't believe it would be a Kodiak bear in that area, though I could be wrong, but I don't think they're in that area. I think they're just cut Alaska. But yeah, still though, yeah, you may I think I'd feel better Geno's involved. Regardless, you'd take care of them. He would take care of anything. But somebody's saying if someone says get in the car fast, in that situation, I wouldn't ask questions. Uh. They all said, I'm gonna go take care of my business. Yeah, that's a very underappreciated saying gotta go take care of my business. Yeah. I actually thought that was actually one part of the story that I I feel like it adds what's what I'm looking for as ability. Yeah, legitimacy, because this is, you know, a Mormon missionary. They would say something like take care of your business, so yeah, take a leak or something like that. You know, you think they're smiling the whole time. All was terrifying stuff that was happening to Every single missionary that I've met is consistently smiling the whole time. So probably this would test them, though the Mormid. This would test a Mormon, right, test anybody, let alone Morey. I think they probably we were okay at first, but then towards the end of it, they probably definitely weren't. I tell you, if little Jimmy, how old was Jimmy Jimmy seemed like a little boy the way they're making it. The Uncle Mark he was nineteen and I don't know the policy with the mission trips. Yeah, I don't think right, he gets like eighteen or something like that. We're gonna call him Little Jimmy though, from the way he was acting, Yeah, little I would have made Little Jimmy use a bottle or something. Yeah, no kidding, I definitely would have. So Little Jimmy's taking care of his business. Whizzen, Yeah, whizzing out the door. So he has a door open, and he's stepped out of the vehicle and he's wizzing. I think that's what happened. Yeah, and all of a sudden he's yanked back in and they take off down the road. And you said that as they were and he was accelerating very fast. Yeah, looked out to the side and they saw a like what appeared to be a man, like a like a werewolf sort of thing, running beside the vehicle. Yeah, with at sixty plus miles an hour. Yes, that's fast. I don't, that's terrifying. I don't. This is where Utah, right, No, they were from Utah. They were in Eras Zona, I knew they were from Utah, Yeah, Arizona, Indi areas, gotcha. So they're very They're a rural area. Yeah, they weren't traveling down some road with hundreds of cars on it. Yeah. And this was also in the eighties, so there's you know, I would say, no, sell bones, nothing like that. You would have to pay, you would have had. Yeah, you're right. Just what would you do? Maybe somebody wo find you later if that wolf man got hold of you. Yeah, I will say, you know, my that was a fun, scary story. Yeah, and I'm looking forward to hearing more of the tragic story that you have for us. Do you want to be a skinwalker? If you ever have what do they call it when you come back to life? Reincarnation? Yes, reincarnation. Would you come back to a skinwalker or would you come back as a walker? Texas Ranger. Everybody wants to be a walker Texas Ranger, and it's another I don't know if I wanted to come back as a skin walker, but I would love or not. I don't want to say it like that. If I had to pick the way I was to go out, it would be in a fight with a skin walker, not a tornado, not a tornado. I would want almost anything that has to deal with a tornado the size of the one you've been talking about. There's one thing for sure, though, if you had experience like this with a person, like if you were around somebody that also had this happened, even if you didn't know, you'd have something in common. You'd relate to them. You could feel like you related to them. Would you agree with that? Yeah, you saw the dog, didn't you? With a black dog? I've heard truckers talk about it on the yard to say it comes to take everything away from it, and it did. It almost took everything away from little Jimmy. I Yeah, it did you. I love about that clip. I think I mentioned it last time, as I see something new every time. Yeah, that guy in the back's got like a deck of cards. What the hell is he Doing's like fan it out like a casino fan. And that back there, and and he's so close. They're all so close to and this big semi they are really close. He's like all up in their business the whole time. Where do you come up with this shit? Yeah, he's such a such a mean Those truckers on the yard are always talking. Yeah, it's true. I I love I didn't realize a card though, I can watch that. Yeah, he's got cards, is man, I always do it. We'll jump back into the drop one tornado, so we're gonna change it up a bit this time. We're going to start off with the final clip the aftermath of the storm, and then I'll pick back up and we'll finish off. Sounds good to me at be inured right now, Josh Air by people fatalities. Right now, people are trapped, the Blair, Philly's missing Josh that used to be here, they're totally gone. This is Oh my gosh, this is bad. Oh my gosh. Okay are you talking to Kenna? What I wanted to know? And I don't know. Looking around, I don't know. Look at that that is destroyed completely. We're gonna turn around. Its call my gosh. Oh oh oh you have through that way? Oh yeah, I see no bullet out doors? See why that's gone? Break the boll well, no, I cannot believe this little lady over a broken track. Broadcasting live from the darkened KDRG twenty four hour Storm Center. Power is out. We are running the backup generators at this hour. I understand liter I got closeation that the hospitals were in From here, I'm trying to get to that side of town. They're just people, Josh done. They're standing stopping. A woman was reportedly seen an X ray X rays in her front yard, and that just gives you a visual to how far this damage is reaching. But if you think this is bad, check out this over here. This is a neighborhood that is completely flattened by this tornado. There are dozens of people walking up and down the street trying to figure on it. We have sustained a major direct hit here in Chopolin. Now, Chad, you've described some damage and we're trying to understand the situation. And as we can understand it now, Joplin will never be the same after this tornandic event. And when I was twenty fourth and Main, I could look all the way to the west and all the way to the east and I saw no structure stand up. And they're like, yeah, like, I don't recognize where I'm at right now. I don't think I'm blue lip soon. You want to ride somewhere, dude, I don't want. I don't. I don't know if I want to go over here. I don't know. I don't want to be somebody from Do you help? All right, here's the guest station that we were at. We parked right over there. Our car got blown away, but the front door was just right there. The jop On tornado was getting where from a half mile to three quarter a mile wide at its widest point. It was on the ground for about thirteen miles. Approximately seventy five hundred homes were damaged. Okay, aftermath and impact of the Joplin tornado. A preliminary survey of the tornado damage by the National Weather Service office in Springfield began on May twenty third. The following day, the initial survey confirmed a violent tornado rated EF four damaged. Surveys, however, found evidence of more intense damage as the tornado was upgraded to an EF five with winds between two hundred twenty five to two hundred fifty miles an hour. This is actually an interesting thing because, for some reason, I don't know why, there's a lot of rating disputes on that, and we'll get to that here a little bit, but this seemed to be a common thing where the rating, if this thing was actually five or not, but obviously the damage was crazy. The scope the damage was immense. According to a local branch of the American Red Cross, about twenty five percent of Jopline was destroyed, though emergency officials reported some level of damage to about seventy five percent of the city. A week after the tornado, Joplins mayor estimated that twenty five percent of the businesses licensed in the city were damaged or destroyed. Nine hundred and sixty four buildings were damaged in Joplin, including seven four hundred eleven residential buildings and five hundred and fifty three non residential. At least three seven hundred and thirty four of those buildings, including three one hundred and eighty one residential buildings and all five hundred and fifty three to none were non residential buildings, sustained so much damage they were considered destroyed from an insurance standpoint. According to the FEMA Federal Emergency Management Agency, two hundred sixty four homes were impacted, and of those, three eight hundred and eighty four were significantly damaged and four three hundred and eighty were considered destroyed. So this is some damage to the infrastructure of Joplin. Tornado also severely damaged critical infrastructure to the city, hampering emergency response and recovery efforts. We talked about the two of the main three fire stations were completely destroyed, two hospitals but had damage, one destroyed, and approximately four thousand electrical distribution poles were damaged. More than one hundred and ten miles of distribution line brought down, one hundred and thirty five transmission towers affected. All the electrical work in the path was basically destroyed. Twenty thousand people were left without power, and of those home left without power, they didn't get the back till about ten to twelve days later, which is huge. The cost of rebuilding just the electrical system was calculated to be about twenty six twenty seven million dollars to the infrastructure of the electricity. The tornado also caused about four thousand leaks and water service lines, dropping Joplin's water system pressure below operating level. Approximately three thy five hundred gas meters and fight and fifty five thousand feet of gas main were damaged, and it took weeks to get to every gas leak figure out where they're all coming from. Some damaged mains could not be shut off because they were serving in critical facilities like the healthcare systems. The loan remaining hospital, and Joplin obviously couldn't shut everything off because of you needed at the hospital. Twenty one cell phone towers were down and fiber cables damaged. Cellular communications rendered useless, disabling voice calls and texts. Insurance. An early estimate from the catastrophic risk modeling from Equate placed the insurance losses from the tornado at three billion dollars USD. By mid June, more than nineteen thousand insurance claims had been filed, a number that eventually rose to sixty one thousand, a total payout for more than two billion dollars, thirty one percent going to homeowners five percent of those who lost vehicles. The impact of the insurance industry was not so much due to the number of claims, but the cumulative effect of such a large number of total losses. In those claims, more than twenty five hundred local people employed in insurance were involved in some capacity. The two point eight billion dollars in damage is the largest amount for a tornado since nineteen fifty. Casualties we talked about this earlier. The official death toll from the National Weather Service listed at one hundred and fifty eight, while the city at Joplin listed at one hundred and sixty one. Shortly after the tornado, authorities had listed thirteen hundred people as missing. The number quickly dwindled down as they were accounted for. Many people were reported to have been trapped in destroyed houses. Nearly thirty people were actually rescued the following day after this tornado. That happened at six pm, so the following day they had been trapped there the whole day they were rescued. Of the one hundred and forty six sets of remains recovered from the rebel, one hundred and thirty four victims have been positively identified, so not even all identified. This total number included four sets of partial remains, some of which had been belonging to the same person. A couple weeks later they identified four more people. Of course, there were people that you know, banished in this completely infants and terrible things like that. The Joplin Globe reported that fifty four percent of the people killed in that were killed died in the residents, thirty two percent died and non residential areas, and fourteen percent died in vehicles or outdoors. Jopline officials after the tornado announced plans to require that they submitted this proposal hurricane ties or other fasteners between houses of their foundations, something that would cost about seven hundred dollars per house. Officials rejected this to have these be a requirement in basements, and they also rejected in a proposal of having basements being a requirement in new houses. Officials strangely noted that as of two thousand and nine, only twenty eight percent of job ones new homes had basements, compared to thirty eight percent two decades before. But it's important to note also that a lot more population increased and that than the previous survey. Injuries ranged from cuts and bruises to impellments by large debris, to the conclusion of that one thy five hundred people were injured and or severely injured enough to seek medical treatment. It also says that they rescued nearly one thousand pets, with two hundred and ninety two almost three hundred homeowners rating dispute like I said, The American Society of Civil Engineers and the National Weather survey went back and forwards on if this was an EF four EF five. National Weather Service kind of got the last gets the last call here. They do agree with the civil engineers that at a lot of the damage was equivalent to EF three e F four throughout it, but there was certainly things that happened in several areas, even though they may have been small areas, that were undeniably EF five if you go off of the capability of it. Example, the manhole cover, what was able to do with impalement. That debate went down as at EF five when was all said and done, Yeah, okay, So just to go into that, concrete being removed, manhole covers, reinforce porches, driveways, asphalt being ripped from the earth, the presence of wind, road structure debris, instances of very large vehicles such as buses, vans and semi trucks being thrown hundreds of yards or several blocks from the original point of orders, the fact that some homeowners actually never really relocated their vehicles again, and the overwhelming extent and totality the destruction were also put into consideration to finalize that as any F five. Here's some facts on the cleanup. The chop One tornado generated an estimated three million cubic yards of debris and amount sufficient to cover a football field one hundred and twenty stories high. Removal efforts lasted for months, and at their height, more than four hundred and ten trucks a day were removing debris to landfills and Joplin as well as nearby counties. The tornado also led to a renewed lead contamination on many of Joplin's properties. Because if you remember we went back to the beginning of the story, that's what this area was founded on lead and development of that. So the reason it was able to kind of lead to this reoccurring of lead contamination here is because there was a lot of reminisce of this and underground trees, foundations, stuff like that was actually uprooted and they found about forty percent of the yards and southern jop One had been contaminated. Chunks of raw lead were in some places. They were sitting around the size of tennis balls or golf balls. The city spent more than five million just to clean up this lead contamination. They had to get grants to do so. Basically, they had to handle this seriously removing the lead, cleaning the topsoil, putting new top soil down, and of course they had to pass requirements before like anything that could be rebuilt had to be tested before it could be FEMA maintained a large presence after this following the tornado, with as many as eight hundred and twenty employees working in the city. The city worn by federal officials that it should expect to lose twenty five percent of its population following the tornado. They actually responded pretty quickly though, and built an average of five houses a week between twenty eleven and twenty twenty two. Most businesses reopened and more than three hundred new businesses opened between these last was it twelve years? And here's the last interesting fact here. There was some conversation about the mental health impact that it had. There were twenty people they said, committed suicide and the wake of this and obviously had a big impact on the mental health for the residents for quite a while, and I'm sure to this day it's not something that you know, goes away. Calls about domestic violence grew for the less next several years, much higher than they were post this tornado. That's rough. That is really bad. Yeah, everybody's standing. They need of storms shelter after that, Yeah, yeah, that was a lot of debrees. They said, how many football fields high one hundred and twenty stories high, one hundred yards wide, hundred and twenty stories high. This doesn't even make sense, No, but when you look at the video that we watched, you can see how it would easily be that. I would do want to talk about that video a little bit because it did a good job of grasping severity of the situation. So the person a couple people, but one comment really stood out to me. He said, I don't even know where I'm at. Yeah, now, so imagine you went outside right now and everything was just wiped out, right, you wouldn't know where you're at. There's no street signs, there's no structures standing, right, How would you know where you're actually at? Yeah, that's that is crazy. One thing you were talking about there was they thought about passing like the requirement to have hurricane ties to prevent debris and stuff like that, and it'd be like seven hundred dollars per building. When you said that, I was like, man, hurricane ties it what those are? What? I looked it up while you're reading. I bought these things for my SHD for the rafters. They're a bucketpiece. Yeah, I don't know, it says to the foundation. I don't know what all that consists of. They're they're for you could use it for like basically everything, but basically tying it in a certain way to something else to just prevent it from flying off. And yeah, it ties like the floor joists to the foundation or the rafters to the Yeah frame, how cheap can you be too? You know? Well so not. They tried to also go as extreme and you can call it extreme or not extreme, as to make it where you had to have a basement in any new house that didn't get passed. I'm not surprised. That's a pretty that's a significant increase, but makes you see why in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, they have much more strict requirements on building codes and much higher rate of shelters. What did it so? Interesting enough? Here also the number of basements being put in the new homes that actually decreased from the two decades prior. What do you think that is? When I looked at it, I thought it was probably because a pretty booming population, so building a lot of home just didn't put basements in them. Yeah, huh, she's so much unpacked there. It's just weird that you know, they wouldn't. There are some things that are makes sense to add in, and something like hurricane ties cheap ad for future buildings that should have been a requirement. After that, you talk about how this compares to hurricane that's like gets like eighty ninety miles an hour. No, no, but okay, so there's nothing with that powerful in the world as a tornado that we just talked about. Well, it's the equivalent of a bomb, atomic bomb. But the problem with a hurricane is its sustained winds can last twenty four hours, can last twelve hours, Yeah, which makes it very deadly, right, you know what I mean, bad countless surge, right yeah, yeah, but this event is quick, this tornado when tornado happens. But I think this is scary to me because you're really powerless. You can do you can get these hurricane ties and stuff, but from the way it looked at some of these neighborhoods, they're just all wiped out. Yeah no, yeah, there was no stop in that. I think the idea is to prevent flying debris exactly. No, you're right, because that that's becomes the most dangerous thing. Yeah, And they talked about all the different number of people that went to the hospital with impalement. And when I was editing a lot of this footage, there was a nurse talking about some of the different things she saw that we're stuck in people. Is terrifying. Can't imagine just from the win different vibe tonight on your scary stories. But yeah, a truly terrifying story. And I have never been seen a tornado, never been in one. What'd you say you see there been in one? I've never actually seen one either. I've been about four miles away from one when I was in southern Indiana, but I didn't see it. And it was yes, one or two. It was not like this. Obviously, there was this one time. I'm not harm soon certain it was tornad. It probably wasn't. They never officially said it was. But I was in the restaurant and the roof got peeled off the top, and I do know for a fact that I felt like the windows were going to explode at one point, and so like it may have just been a straight line wind that was this out of control yeah, or it was like a low level tornado that touched down for a split second and then ripped it off and it went away. But yeah, this like this is like what we just saw was like hand of God level. Uh yeah, how many miles? How long was this thing catch? It said it was touchdown in a mile wide for about sixteen miles of going across. So you said earlier it was going at ten miles an hour. At one point it is going ten miles an hour, which is slow. So that was like almost an hour or something like that it was going through that area. Yeah, so that okay. So aerial surveys when you go back, and they showed that there at the end of the video are insane a drone, a helicopter or whatever you want to look at it with. Yeah, twenty one miles long and up to a mile wide. This thing stayed on the ground for twenty one miles and we actually you go back to earlier first part of this, you actually got to see it develop on camera, which I don't want to say was pretty cool. But it went from a tiny It went from like a normal tornado to this, like you said, an act of God, this monster in seconds. Yeah, that was ridiculous. Yeah. I've seen some footage before, but I never saw all that like aftermath or anything like that, or even like the during of it. And so some of that photoge there was just absolutely terrifying to look at and just it makes you what you feel bad watching it, but it also makes you count your blessings that you've done. You're not if you're not there. Yeah, a lot of people said that they referred to what the scene that they saw as people walking like zombies down the street with very like a few possessions they found. I could see that. What did you think about the infrastructure? How it mentioned that That's something I guess you don't typically think about, right when you think, right, all those gas lines and everything they are ruptured and everything water, gas and electrical. It just decimated the electrical infrastructure in that town. I mean this stuff ten miles of distribution power line. Yeah, stuff like that takes forever fix you, uh, And so that being destroyed, that also slows down the repairs, right, because if you don't have access to power to do that, you can't fix things. No. Today, there was a lot of people on the when I researched this, that were talking about how they were trying to get they were out of town and they were trying to get back home into Joplin after this one. They didn't know where they're at. There's no street signs, and that's something you kind of take for granted when you don't have anything to reference. And two, there was so much debris. Couldn't even get to your house. Yeah, they people talked about parking half a mile away and walking there. You don't even know what you're out walk to. Like, well, in that one reference, that guy said when he looked in two different directions, there was nothing. Yeah, all, And then they showed that neighborhood outside of the hospital gone. It's like there's nothing to go back to. It's gone. And that is insanity to me. It's like you think about it's like what would you even do, Like could you process? That's well, I'm not surprised at the like they said, they increase in suicides and stuff like that. Yeah, stuff like that takes a toll on human human beings that is just hard to quantify. And it's like being at war. It's like you said, a bomb, Yeah, that's why everybody kept saying, it's like a bomb destroyed everything. There was a there was a what did you think about the pizza hut manager that was killed? That's terrifying. You can see like trying to get everybody into a safe place. Those actually a really sad part. I was thinking about that. I was thinking about, you know, walkings that've been in and it's like they're a pretty structurally sound. Usually they're a good place to put girl. They have wall in the middle of the place. Yeah, I mean, but there they are so big and so like, you know, you try to save everybody and you're not going to have that kind of room. Yeah. No, I've never seen a walk in that could fit the amount of people he was trying to put in there. One story I heard and I didn't I didn't play it. Sure, it was incredibly sad. You're sad stories tonight was they were looking for their baby and there's so many random sounds, toys going off, it's about impossible to locate anything, so they weren't able to. But another interesting thing come from this was what it did to the animals that were there, the horses, the cows. Yeah, they would just say you could hear shots in the distance. Just some of them couldn't be saved, but they're so badly hurt. But it's like just so much of an impact that you never think about. That's why I thought, like, this is sad, as tragic as can be. And kudos to this community. It sounds like they're strong at hell and they've made a big comeback. Yeah, but it's it's sad, but it's more than anything, it's scary, like this could happen where I'm at in Indiana, this could happen where you're at. This could happen at a lot of places, but there's just nothing that prepares you for Yeah. Absolutely, Yeah, I kind of want to go there sometimes, just to see what kind of a community can rebound from something like that. There's obviously some things will never be replaced for the life and all that, Yeah, you can't ever replace that, and nothing will ever go back to being the exact same. It's just a new normal now and they're definitely making a go over. Though it's important to note also that there has to be a learning experience from this because way too many people die. I mean, that is an abnormal, insane This was an abnormal and insane storm, but that is a very large amount of fatalities. Yeah, so you hope, and I'm sure there's a lot of things that were taken away from this. I watch a lot of air crash investigators to airplanes. A lot something comes out of every crash, right regulation of finding. You just hope that in this particular instance that something would come out of that because there we talked about Oklahoma City, they have had several yeah fives, but not this fatality level typically. I mean, could be I could be speaking out of my mind. There's some big ones, but with a twenty minute warning, which is pretty sufficient. However, it's scary because there's just nothing you could do. You could drive, hope you drove the right way. I guess you could try to drive away fast. It wasn't a very fast moving storm. It was between forty and ten miles an hour. You got to think about it, though, I'm sure, and I know a lot of other tornado stories. The roads. First of all, if you're behind the eight ball, you can't get around the debris. But everybody trying to leave at the same time as problematic to you. When something like that, there's just no real good answer well, everybody listen and let us know what you thought about this change up tonight. It wasn't the typical ghosts or intruder stories that we share. Luke had some, but change it up a little bit. I wanted to try something different. We're always willing to do that here, just to see what works, I guess. So this is part of it here is we're I don't know a six seven episodes in I lost count. I think it's seven. This might be seven, it might be seven. So it's not normal scary story. But yeah, we're really curious about what you think. Did it work, did it not work. We'll also find out later once we upload the video how it worked. But yeah, we're gonna count on Jack to make some cool thumbnails for the Skinwalker story in the Tornado. But nevertheless, you want to check out more of our content. It's on my YouTube podcast Father Jeff Townsend Media Your Scary Stories dot com. I'm getting the audio versions uploaded, the podcast apps distributed, but I think the video versions the way to go for sure. If I had to suggest, what about you, Luke, Yeah, I think the video is Yeah, it's a little something too. Plus you get those amazing cutaways we do. Yeah, yeah, it's actually pretty cool in audio too, but yeah, video cutaways, you can't miss those for sure. Yeah, I think we're good to close up this episode. We're gonna end on a high note. So what we'll do here is we will play a clip and immediately from that clip, go to the altro. How does that sound, Luke? That's good to me. We'll be back for more of your scary stories. Send your stories to us on social media, look for I think they could search for your scary stories and find it anywhere, or of course the website. Yes, we'll be here at ten thirty ish ish sort of maybe kind of. I don't have I was editing longer too, so I'll take some blame. But we'll be here every week every Monday at ten thirty pm to share your scary stories. And Luke, this one man is for you. Let me find it here. You're in Fridge City where we don't allow guys. Sentry said, you were coming. I know you, you're famous. I was on was sort of the okank you not anymore? You're looking across. We will be right now. We appreciate some food. Okay, there's some kids behind us, how many three dude, Okay, are you the Postman? Yeah? I heard of you. Man, You're famous? Oh right, wow. I certainly can't top that. But until next time, keep being you and keep being great. Yeah, Jeff Townsend media sees you. Good night. And the question is do I stay here? Will you be back? Are you gonna come back? Will you be back? Are you coming back?