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Tag: Joplin

  • Churchill Downs Tornado Damages Stables, Frees Horses

    Last night Louisville, Kentucky was the latest city to make tornado news, as a series of storms hit Kentucky Derby site Churchill Downs.

    Although the tornado damaged buildings and threw debris around the track, nobody was reported injured as a result of the storm.

    “Several barns have been damaged, some substantially,” Spokesman John Asher told Reuters. “There’s a lot of debris, the power is out.”

    Officials had to evacuate about 150 horses and 100 stable workers who have homes situated on the grounds. All the races scheduled for today have been cancelled, but they expect to resume racing tomorrow.

    All in all, 9 barns were destroyed in the 110 mph winds accompanying the tornado.

    Tornadoes always make for compelling user content, as amateurs take out their cameras to document the impressive storms. While the YouTube videos for the Churchill Downs tornado are not as widespread or ultimately as impressive as user-videos from places like Sedalia or Joplin, the uploaded videos so far show both the formation of the funnel cloud and the damage to the barns.

    This video show the entire formation of the tornado as it swirls in the sky. Note that once the video hits about 1:57, you begin to see the tornado touch down and debris begin to fly. Whoever shot the video was pretty close to the tornado.

    This video shows the size of the tornado and it’s relation to both Churchill Downs and Louisville Cardinal Stadium.

    This last video show the damage close up to one of the barns –

    Luckily the tornado only did physical damage and didn’t hurt anyone. It’s been a crazy year already for tornadoes, with towns in the South and Midwest still trying to pick up the pieces. Although this tornado didn’t cause catastrophic devastation, it did hit one of our country’s historic landmarks. Plus, living in Kentucky, you rarely see something like this.

  • Tornado Apocalypse Creates Compelling Imagery

    Tornado Apocalypse Creates Compelling Imagery

    In 2011, the month of May clearly belongs to the tornadoes. After separate storms ripped through parts of Alabama and Missouri, leaving a massive trail of destruction in their paths, the nation was reminded in no uncertain terms just how powerful these weather events really are. The response to these disasters has been quite swift, even on a federal government level, as communities in the stricken towns work to get back on their collective feet.

    While the destruction was indeed a sobering reminder of the powerful abilities of tornadoes, the events also produced some amazing imagery. Granted, most of these images are at the expense of another person’s suffering, and with that in mind, this follow-up article has absolutely no disrespect intended for those whose lives were damaged or destroyed by these twisters. That being said, it’s almost impossible to ignore the eye-catching qualities these post-tornado images have. In fact, many of these images are, from this writer’s humble perspective, Pulitzer worthy pieces.

    Perhaps the most “famous” of this new crop of disaster images was the before and after comparison, which hit the Intertubes earlier this week. Thanks to some amazing photography from Aaron Furman’s Flickr account, we can compare what certain areas of Joplin, Missouri looked like before and after the tornado strike hit. The after pictures are sobering.

    Joplin, Missouri

    And then there’s this amazing comparison over at the Mail Online, with the caption of “The six-block scar,” perhaps the most accurate image description, ever.

    Over at BuzzFeed, they also have a collection of high-end aftermath pictures, one of which leads this article. While the majority of the images are heart-wrenching and powerful, at least one shows the relief and happiness that can occur from surviving such an ordeal:

    Reunion

    And then, there are the videos. A lot of videos in fact, as mobile devices of many makes and models captured the destruction for all to see. Perhaps the most viewed comes from YouTube user izelsg, and it’s a first-person perspective of being caught inside a store while an F5 tornado hits. The images aren’t great, but the audio tells one hell of a story.

    From izelsg’s description:

    The video i took of the F5 tornado while at Fastrip on east 20th street. We huddled in the back of the store until the glass got sucked out , then ran into the walk in storage fridge. Sorry for the lack of visuals but the audio is pretty telling of how intense the storm was. The tornado hits at around 1:20 seconds.

    There’s also an aftermath video, also taken by izelsg, which revisits the store in question:


    And these are just two videos of an ever-growing amount, most of which capture the events in Joplin amazingly well. An example:

    These are just Joplin videos. While the state of Oklahoma didn’t suffer the damage of Alabama and Missouri, there’s an incredible video of a tractor-trailer getting absolutely decimated by a funnel cloud:


    And then there’s this incredibly cry-worthy story of the dog who found his way back home after the Alabama tornadoes tore through the state. Oh, the dog made it back home with TWO broken legs. You might want to grab your tissues before watching:


    All I can say after that is “Mason 4 President!!!!!!!”

    So while the violence of tornadoes can absolutely wreck anything in its path, the aftermath, while often brutal, also shows our capacity for kindness, qualities people thanfully still carry around with them.

  • Google Maps Visualizes The Path of the Joplin Tornado

    Google Maps Visualizes The Path of the Joplin Tornado

    It’s been an incredibly destructive tornado season in 2011, if you can pardon the understatement. Even after over 300 people were killed by tornado strikes in Alabama, the strike in Joplin, Missouri further emphasized just how devastating these storms can be. While the Joplin disaster did not take as many lives as the Alabama strikes, it’s doubtful there’s any solace in that fact for Joplin residents.

    The death toll in Joplin reached over 100 people, and while there have been some rather unfortunate responses from misguided politicians, by and large, reaction has been swift and heartfelt. There’s also a great deal of data-mining going on, as people flock to the Internet looking for whatever information they can find.

    On Google Maps, there’s a visualization of the path the tornado took while ripping Joplin apart. There’s also a map showing the various business and properties that were struck, both of which can be embedded.

    The tornado’s path:


    View Joplin, MO Tornado in a larger map

    Strikes:


    View May 22, 2011 – Joplin tornado strike in a larger map

    In the path map, the path is designated by fuchsia line, while the starting point is marked in red and the dissipation point marked in green. The placemarks indicate businesses and neighborhoods. The information contained here paints a disturbing, but educational video concerning the destructive power of tornadoes, as if the Alabama and Joplin aftermaths didn’t do so already.

    A hat-tip to the Ozark Storms blog for pointing the path map out.

    There’s also a YouTube video of the tornado’s storm cell formation, as seen from space. If it wasn’t so deadly, it would be beautiful:

    Another video shows the devastation from the eyes of a helicopter. Words cannot do the scenes justice:


    In case you need additional visual evidence of the mass destruction, here’s the before and after picture that’s blowing up on BuzzFeed:

    Aftermath

    After seeing these images, it almost breaks my heart to read about the federal government’s bickering over disaster funds, something the Kansas City Star detailed quite clearly:

    This brings us to a rather shameful debate now taking place in, of course, Congress.

    To its credit, a key House panel has approved an additional $1 billion in federal relief money to respond to a spring of natural disasters. But as soon as cries for help were heard, lawmakers pounced on the chance to make partisan points.

    House Republicans are starting to demand that disaster relief funds be balanced with cuts in other areas of federal spending, essentially using human tragedy to advance their political agenda.

    Thankfully, the scores of volunteers who’ve responded to the destruction caused by these tornado strikes don’t share the same kind of motivations.

  • Joplin Tornado Aftermath: Stunning Double Rainbow

    I’m not one to often correlate random acts with other random acts, but this is quite the “wow” occurrence.

    Shortly after the devastating tornado that ripped through Joplin, Missouri on Sunday, someone recorded a beautiful double rainbow in nearby Springfield, which is only about 75 miles away. It’s just amazing that the same storm front can produce something so terrible and something so ridiculously awesome at the same time.

    The death toll has now risen to 116 in Joplin, as officials still search through the wreckage looking for survivors. The mile-wide tornado tore a six-mile path through the town, wrecking over 2,000 buildings and destroying about a quarter of the whole city.

    Not only is the red cross helping out with shelters and its safeandwell site, but there have been multiple Facebook pages set up for the recovery and survivors. Even lost pets in Joplin have a Facebook page.

    All the way.

  • Joplin Missouri Tornado Videos Hit YouTube

    Yesterday, a massive tornado swept through the town of Joplin in southwest Missouri. This comes on the heels of the recent tornadoes that touched down in Alabama and other parts of the south, leaving a trail of devastation unlike most people have ever seen in that part of the U.S.

    The latest death toll from Sunday’s tornado in Joplin is 89. The Weather Channel’s tornado expert Greg Forbes is saying that the twister could have been at least an F4, which would make it the strongest to hit that area of the country, going back to 1880. He also says that according to the debris signature, the tornado encompassed an area of over a mile wide.

    The Red Cross has tweeted a link to their Safe and Well site, where you can report yourself as safe for loved ones across the country.

    @RedCross
    American Red Cross    You can report yourself Safe and Well or search for loved ones at http://www.redcross.org/safeandwell #joplin #mowx #tornado 13 hours ago via web · powered by @socialditto

    Videos from the disaster are just beginning to hit YouTube, including this one of people inside a convenience store when the tornado hit. Most of it is dark, but the audio in enough to paint a picture of what it was like to be in the middle of the storm:

    These two videos show the devastation left behind by the tornado, one from the air and one from the ground:

    Image Courtesy of Weather.com