my prayers are added. I hope everyone is safe.

Jo

The news just reported 24 dead in Joplin. Reports of the hospital being destroyed may not have been aCcurate from my news channel.

The images I've seen of the hospital show the building still standing but all the windows blown out. I hope the hospital staff were able to move patients in time before the tornado hit. The local high school and several businesses (Lowes, Walmart, etc.) also reportedly were damaged. There is a widespread area of significant damage there, so I sincerely hope that the number of fatalities does not climb much higher.

From what I've seen of the computer guidance for tomorrow, Oklahomans will need to pay close attention to the weather tomorrow afternoon and evening too. Things are going to be crazy for a few more days yet before the pattern shifts and things calm down. Stay alert!

i've been watching the weather channel, and yes, the hospital was destroyed. windows are blown out and it looks like it's completely devastated.

my husband is driving home from des moines this evening. he was supposed to go right through joplin on 44. thankfully, he got held up a bit at the horse show, and missed it by about an hour. he started seeing debris about 15 miles out of the city. they closed the road and sent him on an alternate route. he's still trying to get home, and is finally on 44 and in oklahoma.

i pray for the people of joplin, and give thanks for the safety of my husband.

My understanding is that the tornado was rain wrapped so I don't know how much warning they had. I just saw coverage where they have triage tents set up in the road.

At the moment we are OK but the storm has re-developed and is dumping more rain on us right now. Mesonet is not reporting anything but the weather says we have had more than five inches of rain. We have had a considerable hail storm and the rain is heavy, heavy, and on-going.

A friend who works in Joplin and has arrived home says that I-44 is closed and he said there was a great deal of damage around 20th and Rangeline which is a major business center. Joplin has two hospitals about one-half mile apart and the one that was hit was St John. Our news is showing patients being treated in tents.

I am watching streaming video and they say we have another storm building in our area. Our rain now has hail. We are safe, but our bunkhouse is getting water in it. We have never had this much rain in this short time in the 10 years we have lived here.

Critical patients are being taken to Freeman Hospital and others are in tents. Much of the town, including the hospital is without power.

We have been told that the Zena area has had 30 homes destroyed and 20 more damaged and a waterfront area near Cleora has had lots of property damage.

I will report back as I have more information...if I still have internet. Our TV is not functioning. We have heard from one of our friends in the Zena area, but have been unable to contact another. I know she was home because I had an email from her in the afternoon. She lives near Zena, but not in Zena.

They are reporting a trailer park with heavy damage down on Hiway 412.

You can watch streaming video at the site below and see some of the damaage and the fires in Joplin. Prayers are needed.

The rain is still just pouring down.

Here is a link that might be useful: Streaming

Sending prayers for the people of Joplin, Grove and the other affected areas! Hopefully, Carol will check in when she can to let us know she's okay. Dode - glad DH is safe too.

Springtime is a nail-biter here in Oklahoma.

We were posting at the same time. Very grateful you & Al are okay. Keep your floaties handy!!!!

Paula

carol, so glad to hear you're alright. wet, but alright:)

life is so incredibly fragile. everytime i start to get cocky and take it for granted, something happens to remind me that there is but a fine line between life and death.

i want the hubs to get home soon, we've got some storms forming just to the southwest of us. hopefully, they won't get nasty.

CAROL!!!
I am so glad you are ok!!! We are ok here as well.

Stay safe & my prayers are with you also.

Melissa

Carol, I am glad you are safe. We kept in contact with the parents in Grove so I kinda thought you weren't getting hit by anything bad.

I hope your friend in Zena is ok.

I will be up late because these storms keep popping up suddenly. One just popped up out of nowhere in South Tulsa.

Carol, if I can help you with anything please let me know. I will be in Grove this Wednesday or Thursday for about a week.

E

Thanks all. We are OK and have a nice shelter to go to, and did so a couple of times during the evening. They just announced another tornado warning for our county. I don't think it will come this far north, but I can hear constant rolling thunder. They keep promising these storms are moving into MO and AR, but then they re-build. This is the first real hail storm we have had this year. We have had a few small stones mixed in with rain for a few seconds, but tonight we had a significant hail event.

We have water everywhere and our yard looks like a lake. There is a constant stream of water running down the road and going under the road in front of our house where it will eventually run off into the lake. It sounds like a water faucet it is moving so fast.

We have had several tornado warnings issued and the weather radio just issued a flash flood warning as well. I live on a ridge so I am well above the lake level, but we have some buildings built very low to the ground and they sometimes get a little water during heavy rains. It just doesn't run off fast enough. A previous owner brought in truck loads of top soil in an effort to solve her sewer problem. Of course, it was exactly the wrong thing to do and now the water doesn't flow away from the buildings the way it should. We removed all of the old system and replaced it, but the land level is still wrong. We have solved most of it, but not all. Of course, when you get this much rain on ground that was already wet, it just has to run somewhere. It will, but tonight it wasn't running off fast enough to keep up with the downpour. We don't have any serious damage, just a little inconvenience.

My husband's sister, from Colorado, has been in the area (AR and OK) for several weeks and is due to leave tomorrow. She was supposed to catch a bus from Joplin tomorrow afternoon, so I guess we will find another town for her to leave from because I'm not sure if Joplin will have normal travel for awhile.

My weather radio has been an almost constant broadcast all evening. Most of our storm is now out of Oklahoma and it appears to be a little weaker. It still has a lot of upper level rotation, but not the intense rotation that we have had at ground level.

We will probably begin having another problem now. The ground is so wet that we may have trees fall over. Once the ground is this wet (and more rain on the way) a wind will take down big trees. I think they don't develop good root systems because they don't have to go deep for water. A lot of times they are planted too close to buildings so the roots will not be evenly distributed around the tree either. I have seen a number of huge trees just fall over.

While I have been writing this all the warnings for our county have been removed except flash flood warnings. I don't know how much rain we actually have had but the last time I looked at my guage it had four and a half inches in it and it is still raining. The news station said up to five and a quarter in some places. Mesonet has not recorded the rainfall.

I think I will go to bed while things have quited down since I can't check out my garden until morning anyway. Once side didn't look too bad, but the low side looked like a lake last time I looked. Dawn is right, my tomato plants need to learn how to swim.

I am stunned by the news this morning. We had no idea anything had happened because the severe weather knocked out ALL communication for a while here last night, so we knew absolutely nothing atl all. More about that in a minute...

My heart just goes out to everyone in the Joplin area. The video footage, news and death toll this morning are just so shocking.

All of you who had close calls for your family members or for yourselves, I am grateful you're alright and everyone survived.

Because of the severe storms, we had no internet, no satellite TV, no county fire/EMS/police radio communications because our town's repeater was knocked out for a couple of hours, and even our local NOAA weather radio was knocked off the air, likely by softball-sized hail that hit Carter County (our local NOAA station is the Ardmore station). Eventually, we were picking up NOAA radio traffic from the Stephenville, TX, area which is nowhere near us.....Since we had no communications, we went outside and watched the sky for storms the old-fashioned way. We saw some mammatus clouds, and had high wind and rain, but no damage here or anything except for one tree down on the edge of the woods.

Today looks like a repeat of yesterday in terms of severe storm potential.

Poor Joplin has a Severe Thunderstorm in their area right now.

Wow, what a night. I went to bed early because I was feeling kind of icky so I had no clue. I checked the storm reports on NOAA this morning and saw Grove mentioned so had to come check on Carol.

Poor, poor Joplin.

We had mammatus clouds yesterday evening, turning different colors as the sun set. The kids were oohing and ahhing and made me go take pics. LOL But the entire MO mess stayed just south of us and we only got a couple drops of rain.

I'm so glad you're all okay! This seems to be a pretty nasty year for weather, doesn't it? Makes ya wonder what's coming next.

Diane

Diane,

Wbile incommunicado from the entire rest of the world, I was wondering if all that mess of severe weather in Missouri was getting close to y'all. I'm glad it stayed away.

Are you gonna put up photos of those clouds on your blog?

It does seem like a nasty weather year. The weather is wreaking havoc in some many places. They said on TWC this morning that the Tuscaloosa storm outbreak (and the others that same day, I assume) from a few weeks ago is now #1 on the all-time deadliest USA tornado outbreak list, and that yesterday's outbreak already ranks 9th on the list. That's two in the top ten from 2011. Odd, isn't it?

Spotters here thought they saw a tornado out west and were sending photos to our Emergency Mgmt Director via cell phone, but nothing ever came of it here as far as I know, although that storm cell did drop tennis ball, baseball and softball sized hail one county north of us as it tore through Carter County...and that's when all our telecommunication systems here went haywired too.

Our garden probably looks better (lol, except for the pools of standing water!) than it ever has since we moved here. Because of that, I've been expecting huge hail to hit it every time there is a storm. If there is one lesson I've learned as a gardener it is that Mother Nature bats last, and if she sees my garden is having a great year, she sends something evil here to wreck it. It never fails.

Dawn

My friend in joplin was in walmart with her fiance, they are ok. Their wedding is scheduled for June 4th, and they are homeless now. I am sure all her wedding stuff, dress, etc was in her home. They have family to help them. One of their dogs had surgery this morning and will be ok.
It's just shocking. I am glad they have each other.

I have a friend whose parents live in Joplin, and fortunately they had been out of town and didn't get back to Joplin until after the tornado hit. Unfortunately though, her stepmother's sister was one of the fatalities. She was pulled from her home but died at a hospital from blood loss because they had run out of blood. The loss and devastation in Joplin is so tragic!

Carol, I'm glad you're okay and only wet.

I hope everyone fares well through these next few days with more of this stuff likely.

Suzie

Newhippie,

I'm glad your friends survived and hate to hear they lost their wedding stuff. You know what, though? I bet they'll be just fine. Both of them survived and that is what really counts. Their wedding will be more meaningful than ever, I believe, because it will provide a ray of hope and a reminder that life goes on despite great tragedy. I wish them a joyful wedding and marriage.

Suzie,

I am sorry to hear your friends lost a family member. What an unspeakable tragedy for a family to endure, and there are just so many people affected in that same way in Missouri right now. When I first saw this on the news this morning, they were showing the damaged hospital and I remember wondering how in the world you care for hundreds of injured people with your major hospital virtually demolished.

I'm watching the evening news and they say the death toll is up to 116. Oh my!

Sometimes when I link watches and warnings, I wonder if anyone reads thems, needs them or even cares. What happened in Joplin is a good reminder that we all need to care and be aware and be prepared to take shelter at any time. I know that sometimes when I am in the garden, I ignore rapidly darkening skies so I can finish what I am doing, instead of going inside to check and see what the weather is brewing up for us.

I have seen video of several different dogs being pulled out of wrecked homes. How wonderful it is that people take the time to search for the pets too. Having a pet survive must be such a comfort to someone who's lost so much of their home and belongings. I'd rather lose all our material belongings than to lose our dogs and cats.

Dawn

Newhippie,

Can you please contact me by email. I have something weighing heavy on my heart for your friends and would love to help out if I could. I have a wedding dress that is a size 8 (I think) and was cleaned and vacuum packed after I got married. If your friends need one, I can send pictures. I would love to be able to give it to them if possible. I will just have to go to my Mom's house and get it. You can email me at ma_spriggs@sbcglobal.net.

Thanks,
Melissa

Dawn,

I am so thankful you link weather reports here. My husband and I were staying in a cottage in the middle of the woods in Delaware county. We didn't have TV service, but we did have Internet and when I realized that it was getting super stormy I tried to check the NOAA station, but it was taken out. So, I checked GW and read all your posts and felt like I knew what was going on. I don't mind tornado season IF I have access to our great meteorologists. But when there is no tv and patchy Internet, I get scared. So thanks for the peace of mind, Dawn. I appreciate it and I know others do too.

Kelly

I've been taking not of the storm warnings your posting although none have been for Harper county yet. I read this forum more than I watch tv in the summer and I'm sure I'm not the only one so I thinks a good idea. I also forget to check weather before driving my daughter to ballgames out of town so ..may be really helpful to me one of these days.

Keep praying for Joplin, everyone.

There is a risk of storms there again today, and I wonder exactly where eveyone there even can take shelter when so many buildings already have been flattened and are unstable.

Kelly and Sheri, I always try to post warnings here because I know that many of you, like me, will be here in the afternoons and evenings checking in to talk about gardening even while storms rage around us.

A lot of us haven't met face to face, but we chat back and forth just like family members and everyone feels like family to me. I don't even think I could just sit here and 'only' talk about gardening when some of our gardening family members have severe storm warnings in their area.

Carol, after you teach your tomato plants to swim, you might need to teach them how to play dodge ball so they can learn to dodge hailstones.

We average hail once a year at our house. This year we've had it 5 times, although it was only bad enough to really damage plants once.

A press conference has been scheduled for later this morning in Joplin. I hope that doesn't mean they are going to have to raise the death toll again, but I suspect it does. I understand two police officers were struck by lightning yesterday in Joplin while working on search, rescue and recovery efforts. Please keep all those folks in Joplin in your prayer again today because their crisis has not ended.

Dawn

I have been praying for everyone in Joplin and the folks who are helping out. It is a tragedy. I am familiar with Joplin, having lived in SE Kansas during my youth. We always thought of Joplin as the gateway to the Missouri Ozarks and we traveled there frequently. Then my son lived there during the last half of the 90s and part of the 2000s before he moved to Seattle. We spent a great deal of time there.

I haven't heard if the big mall was severely damaged or not. My prayers continue for everyone there.

Susan

I was in joplin right after it hit, luckily all I lost was my jeep. I had parked it at the walmart on range line (71b) and rode with my brother up to the baseball game in kansas city. We were irritated because the game went into extra innings. I am glad that it had otherwise I would have been getting back to my car at the time when it hit. I don't think my words can do justice to the destruction in the area. The home depot and walmart are destroyed as is pretty much everything as far as you can see from those stores. The restaurant where I had eaten breakfast that morning was detroyed. Most of the buildings around there seem to only have one wall up, if that from where I was. The parking lot of walmart was full as this happened on a weekend and alot of people seemed to be out shopping. I when I was driving up there were lots of walking wounded out and around. I had to park several blocks away and walk to where my car was. I have worked tornado scenes before and have not seen any as bad as this one was. This tornado hit a major shopping district during one of the busiest shopping days of the week. I got to my car and started to go through it. My radio equipment was fried but luckily my "go" bag and my first aid kit were still in the back under a pile of boards and glass. I ended up giving the go bag to a couple with a small boy about the same age as my son as I figured they needed it more than I did at that moment. I got as much of my personal stuff as I could carry and started treking back to my brothers truck, stopping to render what help I could. I applaud the first response community and the sheer number of mutual aid vehicles that were arriving as it seemed like there were just whole moving walls of lights and sirens. Those guys and girls are awesome and even after years of training in emergency management I am blown away at the professionalism and the preparedness of these folks. The first few hours were nightmarish with wounded and being pulled out of the rubble, And these are the types of situations that will break through your stoic reserve, I don't care who you are. For my dad it was seeing the people huddling in blankets next to a pile of rubble, for me it was seeing folks having to do body identification of loved ones under in a parking lot. This is a bad time for those people and they need all the help they can get. If you know of anyone who has medical training, that is the biggest need there right now.
-

Carol, having seen what you are going through I really feel for you. Please let us know if there is anything you need. I know how stressed I am just having to deal with a car that was destroyed, I cannot imagine the stress on your family right now having to deal with everything being a potential loss. We drove past there on our way back to joplin to deal with the wrecker company and to take my radio gear out in the hopes that I can fix it... that water was threatening to overtop the interstate in some places. I think sometimes a quick disaster is preferable to a slow one that you can see coming and not do anything about. Kind of like ripping off a bandaid.

Okiepokie,

I am glad to hear you made it through the storm even though your jeep did not.

Thanks for giving us your eyewitness description of the damage. I agree that photos and videos just cannot give people a sense of the full magnitude of destruction.

I hope today's storms leave Joplin alone. Those people there have enough to deal with already.

Dawn