Destructive Tornadoes Rip Through Central U.S.

MINNEAPOLIS –  JOPLIN, Mo. -- A massive tornado blasted its way across southwestern Missouri on Sunday, flattening several blocks of homes and businesses, smashing up cars and leaving an untold number of people dead.

The storm that swept through Joplin left behind piles of brick and wood where homes and schools once stood. Cars were ripped apart and thrown on top of each other. A wrecked helicopter lay on its side in front of a damaged hospital. All that was left on one hillside was bare trees, stripped of their leaves and branches. The devastation was reminiscent of Tuscaloosa, Ala., last month, when a flurry of twisters killed more than 300 people across the South.

 

Missouri authorities said they could confirm that people had died in Joplin, but the numbers were unknown late Sunday and police said they had stopped the search overnight. Details about the number of fatalities and injuries were difficult to obtain even for emergency management officials, because the tornado knocked out power, landline phones and some cellphone towers, said Greg Hickman, assistant emergency management director in Newton County.

 

[Read more: Foxnews.com]

 

NWS: NE Mississippi tornado was highest-rated EF-5

(AP) -- At least one of the massive tornadoes that killed hundreds across the South this week was a devastating EF-5 storm, according to an analysis Friday by the National Weather Service, which suspects several others also were the worst of the worst.

After the first day of assessing storm damage, the weather service said the tornado that hit Smithville, Miss., at 3:44 p.m. EDT on Wednesday was an EF-5 storm. That's the highest rating given to assess a tornado's wind speed, and is based in part on damage caused by the storm.

The weather service said the half-mile wide Smithville tornado had peak winds of 205 mph and was on the ground for close to three miles, killing 14 and injuring 40.

It was the first EF-5 tornado to strike Mississippi since 1966, and the first EF-5 tornado in the United States since a May 25, 2008, storm in Parkersburg, Iowa.

Meteorologist Jim LaDue at the weather service's Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla., said he expects "many more" of the tornadoes that killed at least 297 people during Wednesday's brutal outbreak of severe weather will be rated EF-5.

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