I saw that on the NPR website. Some people are going, “Wow, that’s EF5 level damage” but no, it’s not. That, I’ve seen too (I lived in the Joplin region after the 2011 storm) and THAT is the ground scoured clean, including large trees pulled up by the roots, as far as the eye could see.
One of the hospitals in Joplin took a direct hit (all of the fatalities there were people on ventilators who, for whatever reason, couldn’t be bagged) and the x-ray storage room was compromised and for miles around, people were finding x-rays on their property. They were instructed to take them to a doctor or dentist, and they would return them. Anyway, I later heard that an x-ray MACHINE was found in a field, 30 miles away. I believe it, too.
This is a huge weather system. Way up here in southern Ontario, wind gusts of up to 100 km/h were reported. Things must have been rough at the area airports. I also see from the CBC website that 200,000 in Ontario are without power due to high winds. I had a bit of a power flicker earlier today but fortunately it stayed on.
What you have is a huge number of people unaccounted for–while there may be only a limited number of bodies discovered:
[Kentucky Gov. Andy] Beshear noted that although 110 workers were believed to have been at the candle factory when the tornado hit about midnight, only about 40 workers had been rescued by first responders as of late Saturday morning.
I wonder though if that report of being just an E3 is premature, I also did check images of the Joplin damage and there are many areas in Mayfield that look like Joplin did in 2011. I also saw reports of vehicles being tossed and piled around now, and concrete and steel structures crumbled like an aluminum can.
I believe their “shelter” was a hallway on the first (and only?) floor. While that may have been the location designated as the place to take shelter and may have been the best place to be, it might not be what most people think of as a “shelter”, like a basement or strong-room.
It depends on what part of Joplin was photographed; the tornado wasn’t an EF5 the whole time, and some damage even on that part of the track was minimal at the edges. I’ve always wondered how they managed to get the streets cleared by the time the pictures were taken.
Fewer deaths than previously thought at the candle factory:
Initial reports said only 40 people had been located.
Mayfield Consumer Products Spokesperson Bob Ferguson told the Associated Press late Sunday that eight employees have been confirmed dead and another eight are still missing, but dozens of people who were initially missing have been located.
“Many of the employees were gathered in the tornado shelter and after the storm was over they left the plant and went to their homes,” he said. “With the power out and no landline they were hard to reach initially. We’re hoping to find more of those eight unaccounted as we try their home residences.”
If the Weatherman was correct in that report; then it agrees with what I thought, as I said to @nearwildheaven, it was premature to declare that tornado as an E3. Earlier reports said that it could had been “at least an E3”, meaning that just expecting it to remain at that level was iffy.
There has never been a recorded tornado in Minnesota in December. Blizzards? Of course. Tornadoes? That’s funny.
Currently, eight counties are under a tornado watch, expected to expand and probably become warnings as the evening progresses.
SE Minnesota/SW Wisconsin could see wind gusts in excess of 80mph.
It’s 64f in Winona, MN, should be around 30f.
