Residents walk in the street after a massive tornado hit Joplin, Missouri in May 2011. Photo:
AP Photo/Mike Gullett
The Joplin tornado became one of the deadliest twisters in United States history when it tore through a small city in southwestern Missouri in 2011.
By the time the storm touched down on the evening of May 22, the U.S. had already been experiencing an unprecedented number of tornado events. Over the course of the past month, there had been over 800 tornadoes across the country, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. But despite the constant threat of impending storms, the city of Joplin proved unprepared for what was to come.
Residents had only 20 minutes from the time warning sirens began to when the tornado ripped through the city’s center, leaving behind catastrophic damage. With so little time to prepare and heavy rains that made the tornado difficult to recognize, many citizens were left scrambling to take cover as winds accelerated to 200 miles per hour.
Ultimately, the tornado claimed the lives of 158 people and left over 1,000 injured. Thousands more were displaced from homes that had been completely leveled. Businesses were destroyed, schools were torn apart and vehicles were rendered unrecognizable while tons of dangerous debris covered the city — all of which would take years to clean up.
Now, with the 14th anniversary of the devastating tornado approaching, Netflix’s documentary Twister: Caught in the Storm, out on March 19, takes a closer look at how the natural disaster changed the city of Joplin and its residents forever.
Here’s everything to know about the Joplin tornado, including how big the storm was and and what the city looks like today.
Destroyed homes and debris cover the ground as a second storm moves in on May 23, 2011 in Joplin, Missouri. Julie Denesha/Getty
The Joplin tornado hit land in the early evening of May 22, 2011, during a record breaking period of time for tornadoes in U.S. history.
In the month leading up to the natural disaster, there had been a Super Outbreak of hundreds of tornadoes across the U.S., including four EF5 tornadoes. In April alone, there had been 875 tornadoes, which was over five times the average across the prior decade, per the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The Weather Channel reported that over the course of the month, the outbreak led to over 300 casualties and $12 billion in damage.
Just days before the deadly tornado, there had been other severe weather occurrences, but not near Joplin, according to The Weather Channel. The NOAA Storm Prediction Center had issued a “moderate risk” for severe thunderstorms from Oklahoma to Wisconsin and determined the highest tornado probabilities were in the upper Mississippi Valley — not near Joplin.
While there were tornados across the upper Mississippi Valley, and 48 in total that day, they paled in comparison to what the city of Joplin faced.
By 1:30 p.m., the National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center had issued a tornado watch for southwestern Missouri. Residents received a tornado warning from the National Weather Service just 17 minutes before the twister made its touch down on the city’s western edge, leading to one of the deadliest tornadoes in the nation’s history.
Aftermath of tornado on May 24, 2011 in Joplin, Missouri. Joe Raedle/Getty
The Joplin tornado took place in Joplin, a small city in southwest Missouri that had a population of about 50,000 at the time of the storm.
Tornadoes were not uncommon at the time, as Missouri is often considered part of an area of the U.S. nicknamed Tornado Alley. Located in the central region of the U.S., the area is prone to severe weather and leading up to Joplin’s impact, a record amount of tornadoes had occurred.
Joplin had seen several tornadoes in the past, including a 1971 twister that tore through 40 blocks across the city’s center and injured nearly 50 people, per the Joplin Public Library.
But despite the area being prone to severe weather, many residents were unprepared for a tornado of such magnitude. According to a report from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), a number of structures were not built to withstand such intense winds and 82% of Joplin homes even lacked basements, one of the safest places to be during a tornado. In fact, there were no casualties in homes where residents had sought shelter in a basement.
On top of that, since the area commonly issued siren warnings for tornadoes or storms with winds of 75 miles per hour, many residents did not heed to warnings that were issued on May 22 — as the alarms were “not necessarily associated directly with a weather service warning.”
According to a federal report shared by Reuters, residents had become “desensitized or complacent to sirens.” As the severe storm system moved in, sirens blared for about 20 minutes but were met with complacency and confusion.
“Instead, the majority of Joplin residents did not take protective action until processing additional credible confirmation of the threat,” the report stated.
Damage is seen one day after a tornado tore through Joplin killing at least 122 people on May 24, 2011 in Joplin, Missouri. Benjamin Krain/Getty
The Joplin tornado touched down around 5:34 p.m., just east of the Missouri-Kansas state line, per the NIST report. Over the course of the next approximately 48 minutes, the tornado would escalate to EF5 intensity and cause catastrophic damage to thousands of structures, including homes and commercial buildings.
While the tornado initially impacted a rural area at slower speeds, the winds picked up as it approached Joplin’s city center, per The Weather Channel. Within minutes, it became a classified EF5 storm with winds that were estimated to have reached over 200 miles per hour. As the tornado’s path of destruction continued, it leveled homes, crushed concrete walls and twisted steel support beams.
Members of The Weather Channel’s Tornado Hunt team arrived on site only moments after the tornado passed through and recalled the utter devastation they encountered.
“Everything, as far as the eye could see in every direction, was gone. It took my breath away,” Mike Jenkins later recalled.
In the same interview, Jess Baker added, “I pointed to my right and said, ‘We can walk across that field’ [and] as the words came out of my mouth, I realized that wasn’t a field — or at least it hadn’t been about 30 minutes earlier. It was an entire neighborhood that had been flattened. It was demolished. Nothing had been left standing. It was awful. If the apocalypse had an image, that’s what it would look like.”
Even St. John’s Regional Medical Center, one of Joplin’s local hospitals, was dramatically impacted by the storm. Doctors had only minutes to get patients to safety before the windows were blown out and hazardous debris flew inside. Winds were so strong that the top floors of the hospital were twisted by the storm.
Meanwhile, the life flight helicopter was blown off the roof and surrounding debris entered the radiators hospital’s generators, leaving the building without electricity, according to a presentation from Johnson County Emergency Management.
Altogether, the tornado was on the ground for about 22 miles, per the NIST report — six of those miles spanning across the city of Joplin. As many as 553 businesses and 7,411 homes were damaged or destroyed, impacting 17,000 residents. There were also 15,000 vehicles, including cars and buses, caught in the storm that were either tossed several blocks or damaged beyond recognition.
One year after the Joplin tornado on May 22, 2011. Stephanie Himango/NBC/NBC Newswire/NBCUniversal via Getty
The aftermath of the Joplin tornado left 158 people dead and over 1,000 people were injured.
The victims ranged from infants to the elderly, with a portion of the casualties occurring at the Greenbriar Nursing Home which was completely leveled by the storm, per NBC News. There were also 12 tornado-related deaths at the St. John’s Regional Medical Center, four of which involved patients in the intensive-care unit, according to NIST.
It was the deadliest tornado of 2011 and has become known as the deadliest tornado in Missouri history. The natural disaster caused the most fatalities since the Glazier–Higgins-Woodward tornado outbreak in 1947, which killed at least 184 people.
Additionally, the Joplin tornado was the deadliest since modern record-keeping began in 1950 and now ranks as the seventh deadliest tornado in recorded U.S. history.
Lightning strikes the roof of St. John’s Hospital in Joplin, Missouri. David Eulitt/Kansas City Star/Tribune News Service via Getty
In the years following the tornado, engineering studies were conducted to determine the storm’s exact impact. While it was discovered that a majority of the damage was caused by winds of 135 mph or less, which would be characteristic of an EF2 storm, there was a small amount of damage indicative of EF4 wind speeds between 168 and 199 mph.
The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) concluded that it was impossible to find evidence the storm reached the level of EF5 because none of the buildings “met the high construction quality threshold required for determining that level of wind speed,” according to The Weather Channel.
Due to buildings’ subpar construction, it is believed that flying debris from homes increased and potentially caused the majority the destruction — even if the winds didn’t reach EF5 levels.
“The study team believes that a relatively large number of buildings could have survived in Joplin if they had been built to withstand hurricane winds,” Bill Coulbourne, a engineer that took part in the study, explained.
Despite the ASCE findings, the National Weather Service still classifies the Joplin tornado as an EF5.
The Joplin High School destroyed by a tornado on May 22, 2011. Stephanie Himango/NBC/NBC Newswire/NBCUniversal via Getty
Immediately following the storm, the city of Joplin embarked on a journey to recover and rebuild. A state of emergency was declared in the area and multiple agencies were deployed to assist in the intensive rescue and cleanup process, including the National Guard, the Marines and Missouri Task Force One.
The city even received assistance from the Piccadilly Circus, who were set to perform in Joplin prior to the storm but instead used their trained elephants to help drag debris, according to TIME. Local families also brought tractors and other heavy machinery to help their neighbors, offering an unwavering sense of optimism from the beginning.
Cleanup spanned over the course of many years and at its peak, over 410 trucks were transporting debris to landfills every day. The Army Corps of Engineers and the Federal Emergency Management Agency had hundreds of employees working on efforts to clear debris while also building temporary housing sites for displaced citizens, per White House records.
According to The Weather Channel, the Joplin tornado was the costliest single tornado in modern U.S. history, with damage estimated at $3.18 billion.
In the nearly 14 years since the storm, the city has rebuilt — and used the opportunity for innovation and transformation. Residents were consulted on what they wanted to see in the future of their city and committees, like a citizen advisory team, were formed to encourage community involvement, per The Guardian.
Main St. in Joplin, Missouri on July 2, 2020. Terra Fondriest for The Washington Post via Getty
“After a disaster that’s the government’s focus: we’re going to get you back to where you were. We said, ‘We’re gonna use this as an opportunity to be better than we were before,’ ” Stephanie, the co-chair of the long-term recovery team, told the outlet.
In the wake of the storm, 182,000 people volunteered in the town and on average, five homes were rebuilt every week. These new structures met updated design standards and provided more protection in the event of another tornado.
Joplin High School, which had been completely destroyed, reopened in time for the 2014 school year, and St. John’s Regional Medical Center, now known as Mercy Hospital, opened its doors in 2015.
There were more parks and trails created, at the request of citizens, an art center opened as well as a medical and dental school. According to the city chamber of commerce, more than 300 new businesses opened between 2011 and 2016.
As of 2019, the city’s population has now grown to greater than it was prior to the tornado.
