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

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:05):
All right, all right, allright, 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 notthe case tonight. No, no,
no, I got him out ofthe way early. It's dog and some

(00:30):
would some would say, some wouldsay yeah. Then then I ran into
some technical difficulties right there at theend. Actually, when you started the
countdown, I don't know if youknow, but I looked over in the
corner because my computer started popping upwith some sort of weird error on the
mic as it was like redownloading driversfor no apparent reason. So yeah,

(00:52):
that was a bit scary. Iwas 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 asecond. Had a demonic voice for about
half a second. It was kindof 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

(01:14):
neighbor, so intersidne your internet connection? Yeah, that might be my computer.
I'm on my computer tonight, soJacks 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,

(01:34):
which is all right. It sitsall part of the live stream. Man.
You have people popping in from allsorts of different platforms. You're listening
to your scary stories, listening andwatching your scary stories live the show where
we share your scary stories live foreverybody to hear. I'm excited for tonight
because I've actually got to change itup a little bit. So what I'm

(01:57):
gonna do for and you have twostories, right I do? So I
have one big and I'm going tosplit it up in three different event three
different breakdowns of it. So I'lldo the first part, then you'll do
whatever. We'll break it down likewe usually do. But that's how I'm
going to go through the steps thisevening. So sounds good, yep.

(02:19):
Let me see if I can getsome music eto tonight, it's going to
be a little bit different. Iwill 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 bitdifferent because and I'm curious to see what

(02:42):
you all think of this. Soyeah, 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 shoutout to Steve Carroll for the suggestion on
this. It is about a tornadothat 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'lldo is I'll go through the first part

(03:05):
of this and we'll go from there. But yeah, Jopolin is a city
in Jasper and Newton Counties in southwesterncorner of the US state of Missouri.
Lead was discovered in Joplin Creek Valleybefore 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

(03:25):
valley, and resident John Seacawks fileda plane for the city in the East
Valley. Cox wanted to name thisplace Joplin City, after the spring and
Creek that's nearby. The bulk ofthis 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 populationof fifty two thousand people as of the

(03:47):
year twenty twenty. It's the thirteenthmost 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 tornadothat struck Joplin, Missouri, United States,
on the evening of Sunday, Maytwo, two thy and eleven.

(04:12):
It was the first F five tornadoto occur in Missouri since May twentieth,
nineteen fifty seven, when a Ffive destroyed several suburbs of Kansas City.
It was the third tornado to actuallystrike Joplin since nineteen seventy one. On
the evening of May twenty first,twenty eleven, at excuse me, eight
pm Central Time, the National WeatherService Storm Prediction Center issued a slight risk

(04:33):
of severe weather for the following dayfor much of the upper Plains in the
Midwest. By eight am the followingday, on the twenty second, forecasters
at the Storm Prediction Center realized thata more intense weather outbreak was likely to
occur and upgraded the large area thathad previously been to a moderate risk.
Now fast forward three and a halfhours to eleven thirty am Central Time.

(04:56):
A public severe weather outlook was issuedat this time, and the outlook stated
that severe weather was expected that afternoon, with tornadoes, large hail, strong
wind all named as threats. Atone thirty PM, four hours prior to
the tornado, the Storm Prediction Centerissued a tornado watch for southwestern Missouri to
remain in effect until nine PM thatevening. The watch predicted the following explosive

(05:23):
thunderstorm development with a strong tornado ortwo 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 becamemore concerned about tornadic development. Thunderstorm west
of Joplin that eventually produced the IFItornado was first issued at five seventeen PM

(05:47):
Central Time, seventeen minutes before ittouched down and nineteen minutes before it entered
the city of Joplin. The tornadofirst touched down in Newton County, Missouri,
just east of the Missouri Kansas stateline, approximately one half mile southwest
of the intersection of South Central CityRoad thirty second Street. At five thirty

(06:09):
four. Eyewitnesses and stormchasers reported multivortex rotating around the parent circulation. Here's
the tornado down several large trees atan EF zero intensity. Civil defense sirens
sounded in jop One twenty minutes beforethe tornado struck in response to the tornado
warning at five point seventeen. Thefollowing counties were issued for that tornado warning.

(06:31):
It was Newton and Jasper Counties,which we talked about earlier, is
where Joplin is and southwest portions ofthe counties that surrounded. But many Joplin
residents did not fill the need toreact even though there were sirens. The
tornado and it will also cut myselfoff there. There is a lot of
tornado activity in southwest Missouri. It'sTornado Alley area, so I think they

(06:56):
probably do become a little bit numbto this. Okay. The tornado had
just developed and moved east to northeastand strength into an e F one intensity
as it continued through rural areas towardsJoplin, snapping trees and power bowls and
damaging outbuildings widening. The tornado thentracked into a more densely populated southwest corner
of the city, near Twin HillsCountry Club. It heavily damaged several homes

(07:18):
at a subdivision in this area atthis point, up to an e F
three strength. The tornado continued tocause EF three damage as it moved through
another subdivision just east of Iron GatesRoad. Numerous homes were destroyed and multiple
vehicles tossed around, some of whichwere thrown onto or rolled into homes.

(07:39):
The tornado reached E four intensity justbefore crossing south Scheffendecker Avenue at five thirty
six pm. The tornado produced itsfirst area of EF four damage only four
minutes after touching down, as severalsmall but well built commercial buildings were flattened.
Consistent EF four to e F fivedamage was non as it continued through

(08:01):
southern Joplin. Numerous home businesses andmedical buildings were flattened in this area,
with concrete walls collapsed and crushed intothe foundations. A large steel reinforced step
and floor structure leading into a completelydestroyed medical building was deflected upwards several inches
in crack. Steel trustles from someof the buildings were rolled up like paper.

(08:24):
Multiple vehicles were thrown and mangled orwrapped around trees nearby. Several three
hundred pound concrete parking stops anchored withreebar were torn from the parking lot in
this area and thrown up to onehundred yards away. An Iowa State University
wind engineer calculated the force needed toremove those parking stops from the lot.

(08:46):
The wind requirements to do that wouldbe exceeding two hundred and twenty miles an
hour. Damage became remarkably widespread andcatastrophic at and around the nearby Saint John's
Region Medical Center, which lost nearlyevery window on three sides, interior walls,
ceilings, and part of its roof. Its flight rescue helicopter was also

(09:07):
blown away and destroyed. This causedfive casualties and nine story buildings were damaged
so bad and later on it wouldbe 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 andwell built structures, likely indicated winds that
exceeded two hundred and thirty miles anhour. Vehicles in the hospital parking lot

(09:31):
were thrown into the air and mangledbeyond recognition, including a semi truck that
was tossed one hundred and twenty fiveyards and wrapped completely around a deep bark
tree. Small debris from hospital,including X rays, medical reports, and
dental records, were found in andthe surrounding counties around that area, many
whiles to the east. Wind rowingof debris was noted in this area,

(09:54):
and more concrete parking stops were removedfrom the parking lot by the tornado.
Virtual every house near mcleland Boulevard andtwenty sixth Street was flattened, somewhere completely
swept away, and trees sustained severedebarking. At this point in time,
I'm going to share the first videothat kind of goes along with these timelines

(10:16):
of this let me see coming acrossthe 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 heapget 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'sgonna do it yet further, not

(10:39):
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'lldon your wind, We'll do on your

(11:03):
window. Let's do it. Okay, hold on, I'm getting big.
That's huge. Tell you that's goingbecause I'm watching a strong, large tornado
heading for the south side of oneand I. Chief Randalls had the advised
that we would be waiting before wesend anyone out for any of their vehicles

(11:26):
out for search and rescue, drinkingone 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 surewhere don't or where it head is a
corneto on over morning, Gary cornover barn dream. You got a way

(11:58):
out. I don't know where Iam. 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 myand the hardest job. Man. Ask

(12:20):
where we're going. Joplin, twentysix fifteen. We have a house that
has been struck at top of thehouse has come down on the people.
Oh god, you house none none, Golvin's gone, gone right gone,

(12:46):
all right, you get so thestorm has just moved into the city at
this point in the story. Yourthoughts so far as crazy. This footage
courtesy the Weather Channel and National WeatherService. Actually you got to see in

(13:09):
real time how fast this thing wentfrom basically like a rope string tornado to
a massive tornado that later we'll getinto the size somewhere, But did you
see how fast that happened. Yeah, that was nuts. I knew where
it was going because I remember whenthis happened and everything. That was a
crazy time. But yeah, whenI saw that just now, I was

(13:31):
like, Man, you can't reallytrust things not to get worse. If
there's a bad you know, anythinglike that, you need to get away
as fast as possible. It wastalking about the police were not planning on
sending any rescue forces out till thisis over, right, which is very
smart, but they already had asyou saw one of the officers dash cam,

(13:52):
people that were stuck out in thestorm. That was crazy. This
is another thing we always talk aboutthese like talk about like ghost stories or
or other strange things. This istruly 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 hasjust started and what we've just got into

(14:16):
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'reseeing things already getting flattened and it's just
now starting to enter the city ofJoplin, Missouri. This was a time

(14:37):
period where there was a lot ofstorms, outbreaks and tornadoes. This year
twenty eleven, I'm trying to remember, and it may been the following year,
but nevertheless, here in Indiana whereI live, there was a one
in Henryville, a town in southernIndiana. And that's actually when I was
living in southern Indiana. There waspretty similar damage. Kind of me back

(15:00):
in the city I was actually inthat 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 fewmiles from you, right, I mean,
yeah, I remember that. Itwas 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,

(15:20):
man, what the heck is goingon here? Absolutely terrifying. You have
no control over this. There's nothingyou 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 myhead what the average lead time is for
getting a warning and the sirens andall that. But it seems like they

(15:41):
had a pretty decent lead time here. They at least knew that. Yeah,
there was a chance of it earlyon, but typically I don't think
storms even get fifteen minute people getfifteen minute notice for a tornado. I
mean that, I think that's prettygood. But still, though, you
just start thinking about something so badgonna happen. How much is fifteen minutes

(16:02):
really? I mean, you can'tget your car packed up in fifteen minutes,
Yeah, not with not with everythingthat you want to take with you.
Yeah's actually a family you know whatever, You definitely can't. Yeah,
like I said, slightly different storyfrom what you usually do, but terrifying.
Man, That to me is thisis this is scary. I don't
know anything much more scary than this. I think I'll take your haunted deer

(16:23):
and you talked about last couple ofweeks. 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 thestage for the beginning of that very much.
So, yeah, that was crazy. Cuew it up for you before
I actually start that story. Iactually did want to address a story we

(16:45):
had a couple of weeks ago withthe Teddy Bear. Yeah, because Jack
had made some new thumbnails and stufflike that. I actually knew I had
it on my work bench and Iwanted to show it real fast. This
little device here, Wi Fi enabledcamera that you can stick into anything about
fifteen to twenty dollars on Amazon anyone, except like little cameras like that.

(17:07):
So just just a river. Thesethings exist, They're easy to get a
hold of, and I have itfor 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 ultimateghost detector saying and iky camera. So

(17:33):
they have apps for that, butI'm not sure how much I can trust
them, you know, I don'tat all. That's why I want to
make it. The messobes are aroundme. Want to try one of the
apps though, Yeah, no matterwhere I'm at, Yeah, all right,
floor's yours man. Yeah, Sotonight, the first story I have
is the second story from the truckdriver lady that I talked about last week.
She was one that encountered the WhiteDog, and she's back with another

(17:59):
one. This one, she said, took place sometime after and she said,
I don't remember the exact date becauseshe's writing things, but she remembered
happening later on. After I wasin Nevada for the first time, I
headed up the west coast to WashingtonState. It's beautiful there. The mountains
were simply breathtaking. I drove rightpast mountain Hood and Oregon. It stopped

(18:22):
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 straighteast through Montana to Wisconsin. I usually
don't get a lot of cross countrytrips like that. When I do,
I really enjoy them. It's niceto drive for days at a time and
just see the sights. On myway to Montana, I drove over the

(18:47):
western side through Bowsmen, right overthe mountains. It's getting late in the
evening. As I crested the finalmountain into the Rockies, the sunset casting
a pink and orange glow over thewestern sky if I can help it.
I never liked to drive at night, but sometimes you just have to.
In this slighte of work, Irounded a bend and saw a small rest

(19:07):
area with a large gravel lot ina 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 windshieldto get myself settled in and ready for
bed, when I suddenly heard aknocking on my door. This was highly

(19:33):
unusual. I've had people knock onmy door before, but that was usually
if I was parked not so legallyat a truck stop, walking someone,
or otherwise in the way. ButI clearly saw that there was no one
else here with me. I shouldhave 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 toanswer it. I stepped up front,

(19:55):
sat in the driver's seat, grabbingmy pocket knife. Just in caves.
It was dark in the cash orwhoever was out there, I couldn't see
what I was doing. I rolledthe window down just enough to see them,
but not all the way. Yes, I asked. The person standing
on the ground beside my truck wastall, maybe a little too tall.

(20:17):
He looked more or less like anormal man. He was wearing a black
and red button up flannel shirt,blue jeans, with brown boots. He
just looked like a hitchhiker. Helooked up at me with a seriously creepy
smile, and I regretted rolling downmy window. Evening ma'am. He started,
My truck broke down a few milesfrom here. I was wondering if

(20:38):
you could get me a ride intotown. He didn't stop smiling the whole
time he spoke. It was reallyunnerving. His teeth looked sharper than humans
should be. I said, I'msorry, that's against company policy. That
wasn't a lie. It definitely wasagainst company policy. But there was no
way I'll let him into my truck. I don't need to go that far,

(21:02):
said this dude, the small towna few miles away. Sorry,
I'm not comfortable doing that, butgood luck. I rolled the window up
trifle, checking that my doors werelocked. As an added measure, I
looped the seat belts through the doorhandles and buckled them trick I learned from
my trainer. Man turned and walkedaway, so Washington go expecting to see

(21:23):
him walking down the road. Hedidn't. He stepped over a small barbed
wire fence that separated the mountainous terrainfrom the parking lot and walked off into
the woods. I noticed something thatdidn't notice before when he was standing close
to my truck. There was somethingwrong with how he walked. I couldn't
place it, but it was likehis legs bent in two places instead of

(21:47):
just one. That made my stomachchurn. I really didn't want to stay
the rest of the night, butmy clock was out, which I mean
I couldn't drive it until I tooka ten hour break, so I reluctantly
bedded down for the night back onmy truck. Locking windows did a good
job of help me feel safe.I was confident he wouldn't be able to

(22:07):
open the doors even if they wereunlocked. I was hoping the night would
go on without incident. I waswrong. Quickly fell asleep despite the strange
encounter, only moments before but somethingwoke me up. A while later.
It was dark and silent in mycab. I lay there trying to figure
out what woke me up. Istrained my ears to listen, and I

(22:30):
heard it, A gentle tapping noiselike 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 wasthat 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 arelocked and secure. Good thing I

(22:52):
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. Itjolted 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. Ihad no idea how long police would take
to respond. Out here all Ihad to defend myself with a small two

(23:15):
inch long pocket knife, and Idid not want to open my door.
As I stood there, frozen withindecision, the wild knocking finally stopped.
Held my breath, unable to moveuntil I knew whatever was out there was
gone. Heard nothing for several momentsthat high pitch metal scraping sound from the
same door as a banging, andthen silence. Faintly heard footsteps in the

(23:41):
gravel that seemed to grow more andmore distant until they ceased altogether. It
took me several minutes to slow myheartbeat until I got the nerve to peek
out for my curtains to see ifanything 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 therest of the night, but I had
no choice. I checked my phonesaw it read one thirty two AM.

(24:06):
I cursed the guy for waking meup and the moment myself as I went
back to sleep. So I fellasleep, and luckily the rest of the
night went by silently. The nextmorning, he woke up as the sun
was rising. Comfort of daylight mademe feel safe, even though the parking
lot was still empty and I wasstill alone. When I stepped out of
my truck, staring at the oddlyshaped footprints of the pebbles, I looked

(24:30):
at my door on the side werethree long, thin, evenly spaced scratch
marks gouged into my door. Theylooked at the first glance to be claw
marks. The more I looked athim, the more they could only be
claw marks. I got the hellout of there as fast as I could,
and I tried really hard to nevergo through that area of Montana again.

(24:53):
This experience freaked me out a lot. There were so many things wrong
about the guy who talked to meif 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'swhen bad stuff happened? Somebody said,

(25:14):
you know, here's the thing Ihear a couple different approaches to this truck
driving. A lot of truck driversactually prefer to drive at night because less
traffic you could kind of travel moreefficiently, quicker. Yeah, but it
also depends why you're hauling and whereyou're taking it and what that place is
out. Yeah, there's a lotof factors that go into it. But
a lot of times the will establishedtruckers alone there in trucks, So that's

(25:38):
not the case with her. Doesn'tseem like she's driving for a company using
their vehicles. So she had avery valid point, which you really can't
there's probably policies against hitchhikers. Thereare 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 ahold of shut pretty smart. I like

(26:02):
that. Yeah. Well, Ihad a cousin who was a truck driver.
You family has truck drivers. Ohyeah, yeah, So I had
a cousin that was a truck driverfor a period of time and he was
told to do that when he waspulling 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.

(26:23):
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 amountof time, and that's a real thing
that truck drivers have to do bylaw. 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 definitelytrue. Parts that make give it

(26:48):
a little more gravitas, you know, like a little more realism. And
I do believe something happened to herthere, 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 guywasn't it, you know, a freak
that wanted to like carve with aknife or something into her door. Uh
yeah, that's whatever, but stilldefinitely scary. Yeah, it seemed like

(27:11):
the person really wanted to creep herout. I don't know, like if
that's a full out effort to breakin, 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 wherewhere was she parked at when this

(27:33):
happened? At like a stop,a rest stop in Montana? Yeah,
so she's actually parked somewhere where you'resupposed to be. We see truckers a
lot of times, they kind ofpark wherever. Yeah, so it's not
like, hey, I parked inthe 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

(27:56):
around on the rest stop. Iguess what I'm saying. It's kind of
it's it's pretty creepy. I'm sureit'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 thatnight. Yeah, and depends if
you're near a capital where you're atexactly, it could be very few vehicles

(28:17):
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 whatshe did. I don't know she did
it first. Yeah, yeah,anyway, can you imagine not so back
in the day when I hear alot of film members talk about truck driving,

(28:37):
there wasn't cell phones, cbe radiostuff like that. So really it's
much more difficult to react back thencompared 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 needto be quiet, not be heard.
And that is something that as alwaysthe wrong thing to do. Yeah.

(28:59):
Yeah, then again, I don'tknow, Like screaming and stuff might not
do hear any well, but callingthe cops or and and then again they're
not I don't know how quick they'regonna 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

(29:21):
like a look like a metropolis.Yeah, it's crazy. The further east
you get, you could go upthe whole East coast in like a day
easily. You can't just drive outthroughout the west in a day. Hey,
I don't know. I can't imaginebeing just having all that time to
yourself and your mind too. I'msure it makes everything that much more creepy,
act crazier than them. Somebody said, what do you think about that

(29:41):
strategy, Luke, I actually kindof like that strategy. Is that like
the member Mel Gibson when he didthat in signs yes to get that clip.
Maybe that's something we need. Weneed that clip, Yes we do.
But don't they like pick up weaponsor like a baseball bat or something,
and they're like we're gonna run aroundthe house and meet each other in

(30:03):
the back or whatever. Yeah,and he's just yelling like he's just Melgibs
and just shelling like I'm an Iagree man out of my mind. Yeah,
yeah, yelling crazy stuff. Itworks, It works. Yeah,
whatever whatever you gotta do to getthose 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 andyou never know what's going to happen

(30:25):
out here. So many crazy truckerstories. That is nothing compared to some
of the crazy ones out there,but to her, probably the most terrifying
thing. And it sounds like shehas 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 sendme pictures of some of the people he

(30:47):
sees the rest stops. I thinkyou said one the other day with this
big old, big old man wearingthis huge night gown. Like you just
never know as you travel throughout theworld what you're gonna see. And some
of these people that are truck driversare truck drivers for a reason, right,
they might prefer that. Yeah,they might not be the most socially
gifted person. Maybe they're doing thatfor a reason. So I can imagine

(31:11):
it's much more weird if you're kindof socially awkward than you have somebody trying
to chat you up. They wantto 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 doyou 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, itmaintained e F five strength as it

(31:36):
crossed Main Street Route forty three betweentwentieth and twenty sixth Street. It heavily
damaged every business along the stretch andvirtually destroyed several institutional buildings. It tracked
just south of downtown, narrowly missingit. Entire neighborhoods were leveled in this
area, with some more home sweptcompletely away, and some trees were even

(31:56):
stripped completely of their bark. Atthe 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 whenthat does that to the ground, that's
like when they rate go back andthey rate storms tornadoes. The damage they

(32:17):
can just do to the ground ispart of how they rate these. So
the fact that this storm is destroyingthe ground as significant, which it takes
a lot to do that. Numerousvehicles were tossed up to several blocks,
and a few homeowners actually never locatedtheir vehicle again. A large church,
a nursing home, Franklin Technology Centered, Saint Mary's Catholic Church and school,

(32:40):
and Joplin High School were all destroyedalong this corridor. The Greenbrier nursing Home
was completely leveled, with twenty onefatalities 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 actuallyhad their graduation ceremony, but they held
it about five miles away at fivemiles north of there at Missouri Southern State

(33:04):
University. You got to assume thatthat's very significant and fortunate that nobody was
in school when this happened. Ican't imagine what it would have been this
is. At the school, piecesof cardboard were found embedded in one of
the few or many walls that werestanding. Carboard embedded in the walls.
Yeah, that's absolutely insane. Aroundthe school, street beams and pieces of

(33:25):
fencing were deeply embedded into the groundand 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 thetornado crossed Connecticut Avenue further to the east,
it destroyed several large apartment buildings,a Dylon's grocery store, and a

(33:45):
bank. Only the concrete safety depositbox vault remained at the bank, everything
else was completely gone. A woodentwo by four was speared completely through a
concrete curb near this locate. Thetornado then approached Range Line Road, the
main commercial strip in the eastern partof Joplin, affecting additional neighborhoods along twentieth

(34:08):
Street in the corridor between thirteenth andthirty second Streets. The tornado continued producing
catastrophic damage as it reached its widestpoint. Tornado at this point was nearly
a mile wide cross As the tornadostruck a pizza hut on South Range Online
Road store manager Christopher Lucas gathered fouremployees and fifteen customers into the walk in

(34:34):
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 killedby the tornado. When this happened,
the tornado completely destroyed a Walmart supercenterand Home Depot and numerous other businesses and
restaurants in this area, most ofwhich were flattened. Numerous metal roof trustles

(35:00):
were thrown from the Home Depot buildingand were found broken and mangled in nearby
fields. Cars that were originated atthe home Depot parking lot were found hundreds
of yards away. Asphalt was rippedfrom the parking lots of wal Mart and
a nearby pizza restaurant, and largetractor trailers were thrown over two hundred yards

(35:20):
and Academy Sports, an outdoor storealong Range Line, sustained major structural damage
and a chair was actually found withall 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 hadcollapsed in During this In the area,

(35:43):
numerous cars were thrown and piled ontop of each other. One hundred pound
man hole covers were removed from roadsand thrown the ground once again damaged,
and a PEPSI distribution plant was completelyleveled. Additional calculations with regards to the
manhole covers by the Ohio State UniverseCity Went engineer that we referred to earlier
revealed that the wind had to exceedtwo hundred twenty miles an hour for the

(36:06):
manhole covers to be removed. Manyfatalities occurred in this area and the damage
was raided as EF five. Extremedamage continued in this area through southeast Jopland.
Many houses and industrial and commercial buildingswere flattened in this area as well.
The industrial park near the corner oftwentieth was especially hit hard, with
nearly every building flatten. Several largemetal warehouse structures were swept cleanly from their

(36:30):
foundation, and several heavy industrial vehicleswere thrown up to four hundred yards away
in this area. One of themany warehouses affected was a Cummins warehouse,
a concrete block and still building thatwas destroyed. The last area of EFI
damage occurred in the industrial park,and a nearby gas station inconvenience store was

(36:52):
completely destroyed. Many homes were destroyedfurther to the east at EF three and
EF four strength, and a yearby subdivision and East Middle School sustained major
damage. Weakening and dissipated at thispoint in time. The tornado then continued
on an east southeast directory towards Iforty four, where it weakened. Nonetheless,

(37:15):
vehicles were blown off the highway andmangled 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 weakeningtornado continued to track into rural areas of
south eastern Jasper in northeastern Newton County, where damage was generally minor to moderate,

(37:35):
with trees, mobile homes, outbuildingand frame homes damaged at EF zero
to EF one strength. The tornadolifted east of Diamond at six twenty pm.
According to aerial surveys, the tracklength was twenty one point six two
miles long and the tornado was upto one mile whitest point a total and

(37:57):
we'll get to this a little bittotal, one hundred and fifty eight people
were killed and over one thy onehundred and fifty others were injured along the
path. I'll play a video nowand the next part of this will actually
go to the aftermath. But thisis some of the footage that was occurring
during this stuff we just covered Lillithe CAZy RG twenty four hour Storm Center.
Homes are damaged in Joplin. Oneguy just called up de says his

(38:21):
home was totaled. So I justhad 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 hadthe down offer down Q forty forty four.
Well, that was a civilian usingour radio. Was a civilian using

(38:43):
our radio. It was three sevenfeet 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 togo east, really really bad. That's
going riding downtown, dropping downtown.Watching this on your CAZy er G storm

(39:07):
track of radar, and that isa big area concerned. Tornado warning is
still in effect until six thirty whatyou got there were welcome don to church.

(39:37):
We do damage the staking part.Yeah yeah, you guys. Yeah

(40:22):
yeah. Everybody's just trying to getthrough 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 onour radio? So yeah, once,

(40:44):
what do you even do? There'snothing 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 cando. Yeah, that's that's ridiculous.
It puts things into perspective. Youknow. All times you you think
about like different to as you haveto deal with, and then you see
people go through stuff like that,and then like it's just you can't even

(41:07):
compare, you know. Yeah,it's kind of like your sad stories is
what it should be called. Tonight. It also puts my stories in
perspective because I'm talking about like monstersprobably 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 thingyou can do about it. No,

(41:28):
And it is a monster on itsown A mile wide, Yeah, but
a mile white is insane. It'shuge. And it keeps talking about the
ground being torn up. I guesslike trying to think of the word they
use for that, but it seemsto be like if this thing can rip
up asphalt, that's very bad.What else said? It grabbed the uh,

(41:51):
the manhole covers. Yeah, Iripped out the manhole covers. I
think it through something. What wasthis here? Industrial vehicles were thrown up
to four one hundred yards. Yeah, that doesn't even make sense, Like,
how is that physically possible? Leveleda PEPSI distribution plant that you said
the manhole covers. It takes atleast two hundred twenty miles an hour to
win to do that, and alongthe way it's destroying neighborhoods. It found

(42:16):
a chair le a chair is excuseme? The legs of the chair were
impalled completely into the wall, allfour legs. Did I also say it
put two by four through a concreteYeah, it said it put it.
It stuck it clear into a concretecurb. Just stick it out of there
into it phyticlarly possible. That doesn'tmake any sense. It doesn't make any

(42:37):
sense. But what it is iswhen the wind strength is simply that strong,
it can happen. It can blowa card into brick. What makes
it so scary and dangerous is thisparticular 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 milesan hour. So this storm was moving

(43:02):
ten miles an hour, which isnot so Imagine this wide, a mile
long wide storm moving ten miles anhour. It's a basically probably feels like
it's sitting on you, and itwas an assault. It was a siege.
It's sucking up more and more debristhat it's then using as Basically it's

(43:23):
basically a deadly weapon at that pointin time, any flying around. I
mean it breaks all laws of likewhat we believe is possible because of how
crazy it is. Yeah, Iwas actually looking it up while you're reading.
I had heard this before, butit means we should bring it up.

(43:45):
In the US. All tornadoes inthe entire planet happened in the US.
Yeah, and everywhere else they're usuallylike, yeah, zero whenever there
is a tornado, right, wewere the only country a planet that has
these nightmarish tornadoes there. Yeah,they're France from some countries have had them,

(44:07):
but they're very rare, super rare. Yeh. But here it seems
to be this particular city. Ithink it said it had uh what I
say, three tornadoes in the lastforty 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,

(44:28):
but he talked about how he came. He used to live in England
and he moved here and he sawthe storms we have and he was like,
what is wrong with you people thatyou he would live here. It's
funny that you say that, becausethere was a when I was looking into
some of this footage, there wasa guy from California that was the first

(44:49):
time that day. He had onlyhe moved there two weeks before. He
had never heard a tornado, Hehad never been a tornado warning, you
know. He was I think hesaid thirty something when he moved, so
this was just traumatizing him. Buthe didn't even know. He was actually
the one earlier in the footage wherehe said, like, where do we
go? And I think they wentin the closet and then the power went

(45:10):
out immediately. Uh, Like literallydidn't know what to do, right,
It's not something you think about unlessyou'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.

(45:30):
You can't be and we'll get intoit in the aftermath part. When you
go to like Oklahoma City, there'sso many tornadoes of great strength that travel
a very similar path from like moreOklahoma City that area, and they have
a whole other building code on howthey build home build homes there. This
area is not quite up to that, and we'll get into that a little

(45:52):
bit. But yeah, I don'tthink you can be prepared for something like
this. No, and I don'tthink. 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 havebeen taken out, the hospital was on
the it was in the beginning partof the town. And we'll get to

(46:12):
that in the aftermath, So systematicallythis thing has it's damaged communications, their
search and rescueability. Then they're medicalsay systematically Yeah, of course I didn't
mean to, but it almost seemslike it does seem like as a creature,
right, Yeah, you take outall those things, what are people

(46:34):
going to do? Yeah, Andsome of this footage that we're seeing,
obviously it's not the worst of thethings 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 theworst are dead, to be honest,
Yeah, or didn't have probably couldn'tphysically do it. So these areas that

(46:54):
we're seeing were really bad. ButI'm I don't want to say I'm excited,
but I'm excited to share with youwhat the aftermath is, just so
everybody watching you can get the wholegrasp of it. That. Yeah,
we're live across all social media.We have some people saying, what a
massive force force of nature, Whata scary, dangerous thing. All you

(47:15):
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 issuesand 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'swhat comes next to and we'll get to
some of that. Absolutely, thisis a nightmare. Yeah, yeah,

(47:39):
I agree, man, you're upnext. All right. Well, I
got another spooky story that doesn't haveto do with horrors of nature. This
one is called Don't talk about theskin Walkers. Yeah, I bring the
skin Walkers back. All right.He starts off like this, I have

(48:00):
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 Utahand my uncle Mark went on mission at
nineteen for the Church of Latter daySaints. They sent him to an Indian

(48:20):
reservation in Arizona. They paired himup with a companion named Carl. When
they first got there, there wasa 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 theycame to a compromise. They had to
stay on the Outskirts Trailer Reservation wasn'tvery big. It was located next to

(48:45):
a heavily wooded area. The firstnight, they were trying to sleep when
all of a sudden, their trailerstarted 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 itfrom both sides of the trailer,

(49:07):
like a group of people. Afterabout five minutes, it stopped. The
next day they made their rounds onthe reservation and were talking to the locals.
Carl made a comment to one ofthe families that their trailer was shaking
that night before. The family gotvery quiet and then told them they had
to leave. They thought it wasstrange, but didn't think much of it.

(49:30):
Next night it happened again. Theyawoke to a trailer shaking back and
forth, and again they climbed undereaththe table until it stopped. This went
on two more nights. Anytime theytried to talk to anyone about it,
they got quiet and told them toleave. Mark started thinking that due to

(49:50):
the tension of their arrival, thelocals were doing this to scare them off.
The reservation. They didn't go intoa convenience store, and they were
talking together about how frustrated they werewith 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 guycontinues down about the skinwalkers. He

(50:14):
says, they're evil demons that wereonce Native American witches. They talk about
it, the skin walkers will comefor their souls. They walked out of
there baffled. They thought it wasn'ttheir scare tactoric. So that night,
when they shaking started again, myuncle decided to be brave and confront them.

(50:35):
He went to the trailer door,flew it open, and yelled hey.
When he did that, he sawthree 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 legsand walked slowly towards the trees,

(50:58):
making a human cat clean laugh.Scared so bad, they called their mission
president the next morning and asked tobe moved. They relocated that day.
For a year, nothing happened.One day, they announced that Carl was
being relocated to another city and Markwas getting a new companion. His name

(51:20):
was Jimmy, and drive about anhour to pick Jimmy up from the airport.
The road they traveled went through theboundaries of the reservation. They arrived
about eight pm and met Jimmy,and then they went to leave. The
mission president tells Jimmy, we're drivingthrough a dangerous area at night, so

(51:43):
we can't make any stops. Ifyou 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 hewas Needy's restaurant. To hit the road.
After about thirty minutes into the drive, Jimmy starts complaining he needs to

(52:07):
pee. Mission president says, wecan't stop here. You have to hold
it. Jimmy says he can't holdit, So the President stops the car
and says, okay, but youwill do your business next to the door,
and if I say get in thecar, you better get in the
car fast. With a look ofconfusion, Jimmy says, all right,
opensar starts to appea. About fiveseconds later, the mission president says nothing,

(52:32):
grabs Jimmy and yanks him into thecar and floors it. Jimmy and
my uncle start freaking out. What'sgoing on? Mission president says nothing,
It just increases his speed. Allof a sudden, my uncle sees something
running next to the car. Tohis right, a giant wolf looking man

(52:54):
was running on two feet next tothe 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 forten minutes until it finally took coff in
to the trees, shaking. Jimmygets out of the car. When they
arrived, it didn't speak to thewhole ordeal. It says, what did

(53:16):
I just see? The mission presidentsays, next time I tell you to
take care of your business, youtake care of your business. I think
it's safe to say Jimmy didn't justpee when that happened, probably pro to
not. I will say that somepeople had commented on this. They said
that they were also missionaries in thatarea, and they said it was the

(53:38):
original person that posted it said thatit was in the eighties when this happened.
They were a missionary. Later thisother person was, and they said
they knew exactly the area they weretalking about because of the forest that they
mentioned, and they said that theyalso saw things out there. They didn't
encounter the skin walkers, but theyencountered other super natural things, and so

(54:01):
they they corroborated the whole thing,saying that there was definitely something that they
encountered themselves. And I will alsosay 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 theircamp one night when they were on dude

(54:23):
duty. He radioed it in andthe 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 offensivethe night. So, going back
to the beginning of the story,when they're in this trailer and it feels

(54:46):
like it's getting shook from both sides, like I can picture this. Although
the trailer's not light, you coulddefinitely fill multiple people on both sides pushing,
especially if it was like on blocksor 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

(55:09):
trailer. Yeah, that's what I'mthinking too when I heard that. So
probably just maybe on wheels or justblocks when this at this point. But
nevertheless, they opened the door andthey see a wolf, a bear and
what was the other one? Itwas two wolves and a bear. Yeah,
wolves and bears don't hang out,no, no, the job.

(55:29):
So the first of all, that'sterar 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 awolf and a bear, that'd be terrifying
as soon as you start hanging outof those Yeah, I think if I
see one of those things by themselvester Yeah, they also out. I
wonder what kind of bear was hisKodiak bear. I had to get Geneo
involved. I don't believe it wouldbe a Kodiak bear in that area,

(55:52):
though I could be wrong, butI 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 betterGeno's involved. Regardless, you'd take care
of them. He would take careof anything. But somebody's saying if someone
says get in the car fast,in that situation, I wouldn't ask questions.

(56:12):
Uh. They all said, I'mgonna go take care of my business.
Yeah, that's a very underappreciated sayinggotta go take care of my business.
Yeah. I actually thought that wasactually one part of the story that
I I feel like it adds what'swhat I'm looking for as ability. Yeah,
legitimacy, because this is, youknow, a Mormon missionary. They

(56:36):
would say something like take care ofyour business, so yeah, take a
leak or something like that. Youknow, you think they're smiling the whole
time. All was terrifying stuff thatwas 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 testa Mormon, right, test anybody,

(56:58):
let alone Morey. I think theyprobably 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 wasJimmy Jimmy seemed like a little boy
the way they're making it. TheUncle Mark he was nineteen and I don't
know the policy with the mission trips. Yeah, I don't think right,

(57:19):
he gets like eighteen or something likethat. We're gonna call him Little Jimmy
though, from the way he wasacting, Yeah, little I would have
made Little Jimmy use a bottle orsomething. Yeah, no kidding, I
definitely would have. So Little Jimmy'staking care of his business. Whizzen,
Yeah, whizzing out the door.So he has a door open, and
he's stepped out of the vehicle andhe's wizzing. I think that's what happened.

(57:40):
Yeah, and all of a suddenhe's yanked back in and they take
off down the road. And yousaid that as they were and he was
accelerating very fast. Yeah, lookedout 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

(58:01):
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, Iknew they were from Utah, Yeah,
Arizona, Indi areas, gotcha.So they're very They're a rural area.

(58:22):
Yeah, they weren't traveling down someroad with hundreds of cars on it.
Yeah. And this was also inthe eighties, so there's you know,
I would say, no, sellbones, nothing like that. You would
have to pay, you would havehad. Yeah, you're right. Just
what would you do? Maybe somebodywo find you later if that wolf man
got hold of you. Yeah,I will say, you know, my

(58:44):
that was a fun, scary story. Yeah, and I'm looking forward to
hearing more of the tragic story thatyou have for us. Do you want
to be a skinwalker? If youever have what do they call it when
you come back to life? Reincarnation? Yes, reincarnation. Would you come
back to a skinwalker or would youcome back as a walker? Texas Ranger.

(59:05):
Everybody wants to be a walker TexasRanger, and it's another I don't
know if I wanted to come backas a skin walker, but I would
love or not. I don't wantto say it like that. If I
had to pick the way I wasto go out, it would be in
a fight with a skin walker,not a tornado, not a tornado.
I would want almost anything that hasto deal with a tornado the size of

(59:30):
the one you've been talking about.There's one thing for sure, though,
if you had experience like this witha 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 tothem. You could feel like you related
to them. Would you agree withthat? Yeah, you saw the dog,
didn't you? With a black dog? I've heard truckers talk about it

(59:52):
on the yard to say it comesto take everything away from it, and
it did. It almost took everythingaway from little Jimmy. I Yeah,
it did you. I love aboutthat clip. I think I mentioned it
last time, as I see somethingnew every time. Yeah, that guy
in the back's got like a deckof cards. What the hell is he
Doing's like fan it out like acasino fan. And that back there,

(01:00:15):
and and he's so close. They'reall so close to and this big semi
they are really close. He's likeall up in their business the whole time.
Where do you come up with thisshit? Yeah, he's such a
such a mean Those truckers on theyard are always talking. Yeah, it's
true. I I love I didn'trealize a card though, I can watch

(01:00:36):
that. Yeah, he's got cards, is man, I always do it.
We'll jump back into the drop onetornado, so we're gonna change it
up a bit this time. We'regoing to start off with the final clip
the aftermath of the storm, andthen I'll pick back up and we'll finish
off. Sounds good to me atbe inured right now, Josh Air by

(01:01:00):
people fatalities. Right now, peopleare trapped, the Blair, Philly's missing
Josh that used to be here,they're totally gone. This is Oh my
gosh, this is bad. Ohmy 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 thatthat is destroyed completely. We're gonna

(01:01:23):
turn around. Its call my gosh. Oh oh oh you have through that

(01:01:49):
way? Oh yeah, I seeno bullet out doors? See why that's
gone? Break the boll well,no, I cannot believe this little lady

(01:02:22):
over a broken track. Broadcasting livefrom the darkened KDRG twenty four hour Storm
Center. Power is out. Weare running the backup generators at this hour.
I understand liter I got closeation thatthe hospitals were in From here,
I'm trying to get to that sideof town. They're just people, Josh
done. They're standing stopping. Awoman was reportedly seen an X ray X

(01:02:46):
rays in her front yard, andthat just gives you a visual to how
far this damage is reaching. Butif you think this is bad, check
out this over here. This isa neighborhood that is completely flattened by this
tornado. There are dozens of peoplewalking up and down the street trying to
figure on it. We have sustaineda major direct hit here in Chopolin.

(01:03:10):
Now, Chad, you've described somedamage 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 whenI was twenty fourth and Main, I
could look all the way to thewest and all the way to the east
and I saw no structure stand up. And they're like, yeah, like,

(01:03:32):
I don't recognize where I'm at rightnow. I don't think I'm blue
lip soon. You want to ridesomewhere, dude, I don't want.
I don't. I don't know ifI want to go over here. I
don't know. I don't want tobe somebody from Do you help? All

(01:03:59):
right, here's the guest station thatwe were at. We parked right over
there. Our car got blown away, but the front door was just right
there. The jop On tornado wasgetting where from a half mile to three
quarter a mile wide at its widestpoint. It was on the ground for
about thirteen miles. Approximately seventy fivehundred homes were damaged. Okay, aftermath

(01:04:25):
and impact of the Joplin tornado.A preliminary survey of the tornado damage by
the National Weather Service office in Springfieldbegan on May twenty third. The following
day, the initial survey confirmed aviolent tornado rated EF four damaged. Surveys,
however, found evidence of more intensedamage as the tornado was upgraded to
an EF five with winds between twohundred twenty five to two hundred fifty miles

(01:04:48):
an hour. This is actually aninteresting thing because, for some reason,
I don't know why, there's alot of rating disputes on that, and
we'll get to that here a littlebit, but this seemed to be a
common thing where the rating, ifthis 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 AmericanRed Cross, about twenty five percent of

(01:05:12):
Jopline was destroyed, though emergency officialsreported some level of damage to about seventy
five percent of the city. Aweek after the tornado, Joplins mayor estimated
that twenty five percent of the businesseslicensed in the city were damaged or destroyed.
Nine hundred and sixty four buildings weredamaged in Joplin, including seven four
hundred eleven residential buildings and five hundredand fifty three non residential. At least

(01:05:36):
three seven hundred and thirty four ofthose buildings, including three one hundred and
eighty one residential buildings and all fivehundred and fifty three to none were non
residential buildings, sustained so much damagethey were considered destroyed from an insurance standpoint.
According to the FEMA Federal Emergency ManagementAgency, two hundred sixty four homes

(01:06:00):
were impacted, and of those,three eight hundred and eighty four were significantly
damaged and four three hundred and eightywere 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 recoveryefforts. We talked about the two of

(01:06:20):
the main three fire stations were completelydestroyed, two hospitals but had damage,
one destroyed, and approximately four thousandelectrical distribution poles were damaged. More than
one hundred and ten miles of distributionline brought down, one hundred and thirty
five transmission towers affected. All theelectrical work in the path was basically destroyed.

(01:06:45):
Twenty thousand people were left without power, and of those home left without
power, they didn't get the backtill about ten to twelve days later,
which is huge. The cost ofrebuilding just the electrical system was calculated to
be about twenty six twenty seven milliondollars to the infrastructure of the electricity.
The tornado also caused about four thousandleaks and water service lines, dropping Joplin's

(01:07:09):
water system pressure below operating level.Approximately three thy five hundred gas meters and
fight and fifty five thousand feet ofgas main were damaged, and it took
weeks to get to every gas leakfigure out where they're all coming from.
Some damaged mains could not be shutoff because they were serving in critical facilities

(01:07:29):
like the healthcare systems. The loanremaining hospital, and Joplin obviously couldn't shut
everything off because of you needed atthe hospital. Twenty one cell phone towers
were down and fiber cables damaged.Cellular communications rendered useless, disabling voice calls
and texts. Insurance. An earlyestimate from the catastrophic risk modeling from Equate

(01:07:56):
placed the insurance losses from the tornadoat three billion dollars USD. By mid
June, more than nineteen thousand insuranceclaims 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 tohomeowners five percent of those who lost vehicles.
The impact of the insurance industry wasnot so much due to the number

(01:08:17):
of claims, but the cumulative effectof such a large number of total losses.
In those claims, more than twentyfive hundred local people employed in insurance
were involved in some capacity. Thetwo point eight billion dollars in damage is
the largest amount for a tornado sincenineteen fifty. Casualties we talked about this

(01:08:39):
earlier. The official death toll fromthe National Weather Service listed at one hundred
and fifty eight, while the cityat 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 theywere accounted for. Many people were
reported to have been trapped in destroyedhouses. Nearly thirty people were actually rescued

(01:09:02):
the following day after this tornado.That happened at six pm, so the
following day they had been trapped therethe whole day they were rescued. Of
the one hundred and forty six setsof remains recovered from the rebel, one
hundred and thirty four victims have beenpositively identified, so not even all identified.
This total number included four sets ofpartial remains, some of which had

(01:09:23):
been belonging to the same person.A couple weeks later they identified four more
people. Of course, there werepeople 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 thatwere killed died in the residents, thirty

(01:09:45):
two percent died and non residential areas, and fourteen percent died in vehicles or
outdoors. Jopline officials after the tornadoannounced plans to require that they submitted this
proposal hurricane ties or other fasteners betweenhouses of their foundations, something that would
cost about seven hundred dollars per house. Officials rejected this to have these be

(01:10:09):
a requirement in basements, and theyalso 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 percentof job ones new homes had basements,
compared to thirty eight percent two decadesbefore. But it's important to note also
that a lot more population increased andthat than the previous survey. Injuries ranged

(01:10:33):
from cuts and bruises to impellments bylarge debris, to the conclusion of that
one thy five hundred people were injuredand or severely injured enough to seek medical
treatment. It also says that theyrescued nearly one thousand pets, with two
hundred and ninety two almost three hundredhomeowners rating dispute like I said, The

(01:10:57):
American Society of Civil Engineers and theNational Weather survey went back and forwards on
if this was an EF four EFfive. 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 damagewas equivalent to EF three e F four
throughout it, but there was certainlythings that happened in several areas, even

(01:11:21):
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,

(01:11:45):
asphalt being ripped from the earth,the presence of wind, road structure debris,
instances of very large vehicles such asbuses, vans and semi trucks being
thrown hundreds of yards or several blocksfrom the original point of orders, the
fact that some homeowners actually never reallyrelocated their vehicles again, and the overwhelming
extent and totality the destruction were alsoput into consideration to finalize that as any

(01:12:10):
F five. Here's some facts onthe cleanup. The chop One tornado generated
an estimated three million cubic yards ofdebris 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 fourhundred and ten trucks a day were removing
debris to landfills and Joplin as wellas nearby counties. The tornado also led

(01:12:33):
to a renewed lead contamination on manyof Joplin's properties. Because if you remember
we went back to the beginning ofthe 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 oflead contamination here is because there was a

(01:12:54):
lot of reminisce of this and undergroundtrees, foundations, stuff like that was
actually uprooted and they found about fortypercent of the yards and southern jop One
had been contaminated. Chunks of rawlead were in some places. They were
sitting around the size of tennis ballsor golf balls. The city spent more
than five million just to clean upthis lead contamination. They had to get

(01:13:16):
grants to do so. Basically,they had to handle this seriously removing the
lead, cleaning the topsoil, puttingnew top soil down, and of course
they had to pass requirements before likeanything that could be rebuilt had to be
tested before it could be FEMA maintaineda large presence after this following the tornado,

(01:13:38):
with as many as eight hundred andtwenty employees working in the city.
The city worn by federal officials thatit 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 aweek between twenty eleven and twenty twenty two.
Most businesses reopened and more than threehundred new businesses opened between these last

(01:14:00):
was it twelve years? And here'sthe last interesting fact here. There was
some conversation about the mental health impactthat it had. There were twenty people
they said, committed suicide and thewake of this and obviously had a big
impact on the mental health for theresidents for quite a while, and I'm

(01:14:23):
sure to this day it's not somethingthat you know, goes away. Calls
about domestic violence grew for the lessnext several years, much higher than they
were post this tornado. That's rough. That is really bad. Yeah,
everybody's standing. They need of stormsshelter after that, Yeah, yeah,
that was a lot of debrees.They said, how many football fields high

(01:14:46):
one hundred and twenty stories high,one hundred yards wide, hundred and twenty
stories high. This doesn't even makesense, No, but when you look
at the video that we watched,you can see how it would easily be
that. I would do want totalk about that video a little bit because
it did a good job of graspingseverity of the situation. So the person

(01:15:06):
a couple people, but one commentreally 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 everythingwas just wiped out, right, you
wouldn't know where you're at. There'sno street signs, there's no structures standing,
right, How would you know whereyou're actually at? Yeah, that's

(01:15:27):
that is crazy. One thing youwere talking about there was they thought about
passing like the requirement to have hurricaneties to prevent debris and stuff like that,
and it'd be like seven hundred dollarsper building. When you said that,
I was like, man, hurricaneties 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 abucketpiece. Yeah, I don't know,

(01:15:54):
it says to the foundation. Idon't know what all that consists of.
They're they're for you could use itfor like basically everything, but basically tying
it in a certain way to somethingelse to just prevent it from flying off.
And yeah, it ties like thefloor joists to the foundation or the
rafters to the Yeah frame, howcheap can you be too? You know?

(01:16:18):
Well so not. They tried toalso 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 housethat 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 havemuch more strict requirements on building codes and

(01:16:42):
much higher rate of shelters. Whatdid it so? Interesting enough? Here
also the number of basements being putin the new homes that actually decreased from
the two decades prior. What doyou think that is? When I looked
at it, I thought it wasprobably because a pretty booming population, so
building a lot of home just didn'tput basements in them. Yeah, huh,

(01:17:04):
she's so much unpacked there. It'sjust weird that you know, they
wouldn't. There are some things thatare makes sense to add in, and
something like hurricane ties cheap ad forfuture buildings that should have been a requirement.
After that, you talk about howthis compares to hurricane that's like gets

(01:17:24):
like eighty ninety miles an hour.No, no, but okay, so
there's nothing with that powerful in theworld as a tornado that we just talked
about. Well, it's the equivalentof a bomb, atomic bomb. But
the problem with a hurricane is itssustained winds can last twenty four hours,
can last twelve hours, Yeah,which makes it very deadly, right,

(01:17:47):
you know what I mean, badcountless surge, right yeah, yeah,
but this event is quick, thistornado when tornado happens. But I think
this is scary to me because you'rereally powerless. You can do you can
get these hurricane ties and stuff,but from the way it looked at some

(01:18:11):
of these neighborhoods, they're just allwiped 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 talkedabout all the different number of people that
went to the hospital with impalement.And when I was editing a lot of

(01:18:32):
this footage, there was a nursetalking 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 scarystories. But yeah, a truly terrifying
story. And I have never beenseen a tornado, never been in one.

(01:18:53):
What'd you say you see there beenin one? I've never actually seen
one either. I've been about fourmiles away from one when I was in
southern Indiana, but I didn't seeit. And it was yes, one
or two. It was not likethis. Obviously, there was this one
time. I'm not harm soon certainit was tornad. It probably wasn't.
They never officially said it was.But I was in the restaurant and the

(01:19:18):
roof got peeled off the top,and I do know for a fact that
I felt like the windows were goingto explode at one point, and so
like it may have just been astraight line wind that was this out of
control yeah, or it was likea low level tornado that touched down for
a split second and then ripped itoff and it went away. But yeah,

(01:19:41):
this like this is like what wejust saw was like hand of God
level. Uh yeah, how manymiles? How long was this thing catch?
It said it was touchdown in amile wide for about sixteen miles of
going across. So you said earlierit was going at ten miles an hour.

(01:20:04):
At one point it is going tenmiles an hour, which is slow.
So that was like almost an houror something like that it was going
through that area. Yeah, sothat okay. So aerial surveys when you
go back, and they showed thatthere at the end of the video are
insane a drone, a helicopter orwhatever you want to look at it with.

(01:20:26):
Yeah, twenty one miles long andup to a mile wide. This
thing stayed on the ground for twentyone 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 tosay was pretty cool. But it went
from a tiny It went from likea normal tornado to this, like you

(01:20:47):
said, an act of God,this monster in seconds. Yeah, that
was ridiculous. Yeah. I've seensome footage before, but I never saw
all that like aftermath or anything likethat, or even like the during of
it. And so some of thatphotoge there was just absolutely terrifying to look
at and just it makes you whatyou feel bad watching it, but it

(01:21:11):
also makes you count your blessings thatyou've done. You're not if you're not
there. Yeah, a lot ofpeople said that they referred to what the
scene that they saw as people walkinglike zombies down the street with very like
a few possessions they found. Icould see that. What did you think
about the infrastructure? How it mentionedthat That's something I guess you don't typically
think about, right when you think, right, all those gas lines and

(01:21:34):
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 likethat takes forever fix you, uh,
And so that being destroyed, thatalso slows down the repairs, right,

(01:21:56):
because if you don't have access topower to do that, you can't fix
things. No. Today, therewas a lot of people on the when
I researched this, that were talkingabout how they were trying to get they
were out of town and they weretrying to get back home into Joplin after
this one. They didn't know wherethey're at. There's no street signs,

(01:22:17):
and that's something you kind of takefor granted when you don't have anything to
reference. And two, there wasso much debris. Couldn't even get to
your house. Yeah, they peopletalked about parking half a mile away and
walking there. You don't even knowwhat 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

(01:22:40):
that neighborhood outside of the hospital gone. It's like there's nothing to go back
to. It's gone. And thatis insanity to me. It's like you
think about it's like what would youeven do, Like could you process?
That's well, I'm not surprised atthe like they said, they increase in
suicides and stuff like that. Yeah, stuff like that takes a toll on

(01:23:05):
human human beings that is just hardto 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 bombdestroyed everything. There was a there was
a what did you think about thepizza hut manager that was killed? That's
terrifying. You can see like tryingto get everybody into a safe place.

(01:23:28):
Those actually a really sad part.I was thinking about that. I was
thinking about, you know, walkingsthat've been in and it's like they're a
pretty structurally sound. Usually they're agood 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 havethat kind of room. Yeah. No,

(01:23:50):
I've never seen a walk in thatcould 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, itwas incredibly sad. You're sad stories tonight
was they were looking for their babyand there's so many random sounds, toys
going off, it's about impossible tolocate anything, so they weren't able to.

(01:24:15):
But another interesting thing come from thiswas what it did to the animals
that were there, the horses,the cows. Yeah, they would just
say you could hear shots in thedistance. 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,

(01:24:36):
this is sad, as tragic ascan be. And kudos to this community.
It sounds like they're strong at helland 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 atin Indiana, this could happen where
you're at. This could happen ata lot of places, but there's just

(01:24:57):
nothing that prepares you for Yeah.Absolutely, Yeah, I kind of want
to go there sometimes, just tosee what kind of a community can rebound
from something like that. There's obviouslysome 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 theexact same. It's just a new normal

(01:25:23):
now and they're definitely making a goover. Though it's important to note also
that there has to be a learningexperience from this because way too many people
die. I mean, that isan abnormal, insane This was an abnormal
and insane storm, but that isa very large amount of fatalities. Yeah,

(01:25:43):
so you hope, and I'm surethere's a lot of things that were
taken away from this. I watcha lot of air crash investigators to airplanes.
A lot something comes out of everycrash, right regulation of finding.
You just hope that in this particularinstance that something would come out of that
because there we talked about Oklahoma City, they have had several yeah fives,

(01:26:06):
but not this fatality level typically.I mean, could be I could be
speaking out of my mind. There'ssome 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 coulddrive, hope you drove the right way.
I guess you could try to driveaway fast. It wasn't a very

(01:26:29):
fast moving storm. It was betweenforty and ten miles an hour. You
got to think about it, though, I'm sure, and I know a
lot of other tornado stories. Theroads. First of all, if you're
behind the eight ball, you can'tget around the debris. But everybody trying
to leave at the same time asproblematic 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 uptonight. It wasn't the typical ghosts or

(01:26:53):
intruder stories that we share. Lukehad some, but change it up a
little bit. I wanted to trysomething different. We're always willing to do
that here, just to see whatworks, I guess. So this is
part of it here is we're Idon'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 normalscary story. But yeah, we're really

(01:27:15):
curious about what you think. Didit work, did it not work.
We'll also find out later once weupload the video how it worked. But
yeah, we're gonna count on Jackto 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 YouTubepodcast Father Jeff Townsend Media Your Scary Stories

(01:27:36):
dot com. I'm getting the audioversions uploaded, the podcast apps distributed,
but I think the video versions theway to go for sure. If I
had to suggest, what about you, Luke, Yeah, I think the
video is Yeah, it's a littlesomething too. Plus you get those amazing
cutaways we do. Yeah, yeah, it's actually pretty cool in audio too,

(01:28:00):
but yeah, video cutaways, youcan't miss those for sure. Yeah,
I think we're good to close upthis episode. We're gonna end on
a high note. So what we'lldo here is we will play a clip
and immediately from that clip, goto 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 tous on social media, look for I

(01:28:21):
think they could search for your scarystories and find it anywhere, or of
course the website. Yes, we'llbe here at ten thirty ish ish sort
of maybe kind of. I don'thave I was editing longer too, so
I'll take some blame. But we'llbe here every week every Monday at ten

(01:28:41):
thirty pm to share your scary stories. And Luke, this one man is
for you. Let me find ithere. You're in Fridge City where we
don't allow guys. Sentry said,you were coming. I know you,

(01:29:12):
you're famous. I was on wassort of the okank you not anymore?
You're looking across. We will beright now. We appreciate some food.
Okay, there's some kids behind us, how many three dude, Okay,

(01:29:42):
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 andkeep being great. Yeah, Jeff Townsend

(01:30:05):
media sees you. Good night.And the question is do I stay here?
Will you be back? Are yougonna come back? Will you be
back? Are you coming back?

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

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