![]() “The car rolled over onto my arm and broke it,” he said. The twister picked up the car, and Weersing held his arm out the window trying to hold on to the vehicle’s door so he wouldn’t be sucked out. “It just happened in a second, all the windows blew out and a tree fell onto the windshield,” he said. Steven Weersing was 17 when he and his friends drove straight into the storm. We know better than anyone else that there’s nothing worse than picking up your life.” “As soon as we could get there, we would help them with the cleanup, the hard work that no one wants to do,” he said. “He was a veteran, and I want his kids to know that his life was worth something.”įluharty said one of the first things he saw after the tornado was an ambulance arriving from Springfield, Missouri.įluharty said he was inspired by the selfless nature of the first responders and, in turn, has helped with disaster response after tornadoes in Moore, Oklahoma, and Branson and Baxter Springs, Missouri. “He saved my life, he saved a lot of lives,” said Fluharty, 22. ![]() Lucas ushered almost everyone at the restaurant into a walk-in freezer. He credits co-worker Christopher Lucas with saving his life. “We went outside to look and it was so wide, it looked like a thunderstorm,” he said Sunday. Increased use of social media, such as text messaging and smartphone apps, also was recommended, as was increased collaboration among government agencies.ĭaniel Fluharty was working at a Pizza Hut five years ago when the warnings sounded. The recommendations included an improved warning system that conveyed the urgent nature of an approaching tornado and the devastating impact it could have. The study found many did not take shelter because sometimes false alarms had been sounded over the years. “The tornado that struck Joplin offers important lessons about disaster preparedness,” then-National Weather Service Director Jack Hayes said in 2011. National Weather Service made changes after JoplinĪfter the tornado struck, the National Weather Service sent an assessment team to study the community’s preparedness and make key recommendations. The nation’s deadliest tornado hit March 18, 1925, killing 695 people and traveling more than 300 miles through Missouri, Illinois and Indiana. The storm damaged or destroyed 7,500 residences and 500 businesses, displaced 9,200 people, affected 5,000 employees and generated 3 million cubic yards of debris, said a report from the city of Joplin. It injured more than 1,000 people and packed winds of more than 200 mph. The Joplin tornado was the deadliest in the United States since 1950 – when modern record-keeping began. Here are five things to know about the deadly storm – facts and memories of that day: ![]() Five years ago, a tornado ripped through the Missouri city of Joplin, tearing apart buildings and neighborhoods, and killing about 160 people.Īs it marks the fifth anniversary Sunday, Joplin has worked to rebuild, both its spirits and buildings. ![]()
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