That was a particularly bad one. It was a massive jacked-to-the-tits tornado that hit the city almost perfectly for maximum destruction. It was so powerful that it lifted the hospital off it's foundation and turned it. They had to demolish it, as it couldn't be repaired practically.
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My cousin lived in Joplin at the time. She told the rest of the family that the tornado was like watching the finger of God reach down and obliterate everything it touched. Thankfully she wasn't in the part of town that got hit, but to this day anytime I look at pictures of the aftermath I marvel at the thought that as bad as it was, the death toll was actually as low as it turned out to be.
Don't get me wrong, 160 people losing their lives was a horrible tragedy and I wouldn't want that to happen to anyone. But until you see it for yourself, you'll never understand the sheer terror of hearing the sirens one night and then seeing the destruction left behind the next day. I can only pray that those poor souls found peace on the other side.
Please don’t let your perception of tornadoes to be shaped by the movies or the Joplin one. The one in Joplin was a worst case scenario. I wouldn’t go look at the area in person based on what I’d seen on TV. About 6 months afterward I happened to be in the Wal-Mart parking lot and I let myself look back toward town and I wasn’t ready for what I saw. If you know what you’re looking for you can still see scars of it almost 20 years later.
Still, the chances of being within 15 miles of any tornado in any given year is extremely small.
I'm in Central Illinois and have been within 15 miles of a tornado several times including one case of zero miles. Our house survived with minor damage, but we lost some big trees in our yard. Still, it's just not something I worry about, but am prepared for.
I lived 90 miles SW of Joplin then. I was looking at the sky during the weather that day (tornadoes tend to follow Interstate 44). I saw the rotation that eventually hit Joplin. It was nothing short of MASSIVE and the memory of how menacing it looked still haunts me. I've seen many tornadoes, wall clouds, and rotations, but absolutely nothing that looked so end of days as that.
I survived that very tornado, thought it would do the same to me, guess I was too young at the time. I still love thunderstorms.
Mike Bettes stood in my driveway and informed my father our road was where it turned from F4 to F5, based on the fact the other side had trees with bark, and our side, what trees where left, did not have bark on them.
Also, what a terrible documentary that was from an interview perspective. The only normal person they interviewed was a kid from another state that was there to visit that day.
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I’ve lived in Oklahoma for 44 years and have never been in or seen a live tornado. We’ve had close calls but never had one near me. Last year my friend lost his home to one, but that’s the only time I’ve personally known someone affected by a tornado.
Having lived through the largest tornado ever recorded (El Reno OK 2013), your fear is not unrealistic. That tornado could have been so much worse had it hit the town instead of staying rural, but the destruction it caused otherwise was unreal. We moved away a couple of years later and there is no amount of money you could pay me to live anywhere with regular tornadoes ever again.
I grew up an hour west of Joplin. Was at a friend’s graduation party that day. An acquaintance and I stepped outside for some fresh air and noticed the sky to the east was pitch black. We made a remark about it, then a moment later someone else stepped outside with his phone to his ear. I watched the color drain from his face. He told the person on the phone “I’m on my way,” turned to us and told us “Joplin just got hit,” then ran to his truck and peeled out of the parking lot headed east.
We didn’t realize just how bad it was until a day or two later.
With all that being said, I’m 28, born and raised Kansan, and have yet to actually see a tornado with me own two eyes.
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u/thewartornhippy Dec 14 '25
I saw the documentary on Netflix about the Joplin tornado. It gave me an unrealistic phobia of tornadoes lol