SOURCES USED: https://pastebin.com/v4FeF7w3
Tornado Icons by @MedianEgg
EF Scale Rant: https://youtu.be/C6mb_IBcn14?si=VTsF743mhF9dFHCy
Want to request a storm for me to cover? Fill out this form! (Please read the instructions on the form before sending a request): https://forms.gle/y24TaENXChddrXuH6
The thumbnail photo was originally taken by Jeff Piotrowski, however the specific thumbnail art in question is from the NWS page and is thusly in the Public Domain.
You can see where I got the original photo from here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Joplin_tornado_photo.jpg
Joplin, Missouri, located in the southwestern part of the state, it’s known for multiple reasons. Known as the center of the “four-state area”; Joplin covers a total of 31.52 square miles spanning both Jasper and Newton counties. The city’s population is around 50,000, while the metro population is 400,000, the fourth largest in the state. The city is a commercial, medical, and cultural hub, home to 2 hospitals, 3 airports, 6 post-secondary educational institutions, and numerous businesses. Many call it home. However, most don’t know about Joplin because of its central status in the region, instead, they remember when the city of Joplin was at the forefront of Mother Nature’s wrath. On one disastrous May afternoon, the city of Joplin was brought into the darkest time in its nearly 150-year history.
On the evening of May 22, 2011, a violent EF5 tornado tore through the city of Joplin, less than a month after the 2011 super outbreak. A third of Joplin was gone. In a year with numerous violent tornadoes that laid waste to countless towns and cities, the Joplin tornado was a beast in its own right. It caused 161 deaths, the highest death toll from a singular tornado since official records began in 1950; and $2.8 billion in damages, the costliest tornado on record. Many know what happened in Joplin, but not the finer details and the stories that came from the city’s darkest day. Today, I’m going to share those stories with you and everything you need to know. Beginning with the state of the 2011 tornado season before Joplin, how the Joplin tornado came to be, the timeline of its path and destruction, the aftermath and recovery, the impacts on the EF-Scale, and lastly how the city is holding up today. Welcome to Nature’s Fury.
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Correction: Footage at 22:47 is NOT from Dillon's. I thought that was from the Dillon's since the description of the circumstances from the reporting (Both from CBS and Fox News) Implies that it could have been Dillon's but it was actually not. I apologize for that. Not a big deal since the actions taken were pretty much the same.
OKAY: Since I've at least gotten 3-4 comments saying something stupid along the lines of "JOPLIN DID NOT DESERVE EF5" and I know exactly WHY those comments are appearing, and it genuinely pisses me off because a small minority of people missed the entire point of me bringing up the EF-Scale at the end, alongside the WHY I brought it up.
I probably should have pointed it out in big bold letters but The point of the studies were to analyze how the buildings failed and the common building practices that led to such failure, not determining/verifying the rating. I even said that Tim Marshall's Study VERIFIED the EF5 Rating right as I got started.
I said at the very end before discussing the studies in detail to not focus on the rating side of the report because of the way the studies were conducted.
My perspective when it came to bringing the EF-Scale discussion into the Joplin video is because (this is likely the case) is that Joplin was likely the cause of the death of contextual evidence being used in justifying ratings, and the issues that were found during the surveys done by NIST were confirmations of what was discussed the year prior, a part of the video that I had to scrap for the sake of time. The other reason being I brought this up in my EF-Scale rant last year, and I wanted to explain the findings a bit more in detail since, fun fact: I read the ENTIRE NIST REPORT FROM PAGE 1 TO THE END (Not counting the Appendix since that's background info)
I will say that it's illogical to get angry at the state of Joplin's infrastructure at the time, not every house, especially older ones, will be up to code given how they change. You cannot just, edit the building like it's Minecraft. There was an entire rant that got scrapped upon me realizing it was kind of silly. However you can still criticize a building's quality, under the pretenses of understanding the context. (Look at page 185 in the NIST report) Knowing that, I definitely needed to mention that looking how it seems people got confused. I still standby the allusion I made to the problems with the US's aging infrastructure and building codes (Although that last part not really in this case specifically). HOWEVER, the NIST report does say "Age of construction was not a statistically significant factor in terms of performance of residential buildings. In other words, newer and older residential buildings sustained similar degrees of damage when exposed to similar tornado hazards." (pp. 197)
It's a minor part of Joplin's legacy, and I thought that it was interesting enough of a read to bring it up in this video. It ties into the state of the country's aging infrastructure and the EF Scale's current revision which is relevant today. Plus it's 4 minutes out of a 67 minute video, it's literally 6% of the video's total run time.
To quote myself from my twitter thread:
"I brought it up, not because I have "Feelings" for the topic, but rather from the mindset of "We literally use this scale for tornadoes and this tornado affected the perception of it, it's a minor point in Joplin's legacy that's worth talking about."
I will not be bringing up the scale again unless I have to do another rant video. That means the rating controversy when I cover Villonia is going to be ignored entirely, and I better hear no comments complaining about it then.
Small Correction: The final song credited "Someday, Sometime" is created by KARUT, not KARUTS, small typo. Will update this if needed.
Hi
I remember this tornado vividly, especially hearing stories about the destruction of the old hospital and the Pizza Hut, Walmart, Home Depot, & and the Rangeline Road area of the city district.. this thing was a monster in its own characteristic with the stage of the tornado being heavily rain wrapped and dark like it was midnight really fast
This was one of those worst-case scenarios. An alarm-weary population and a tornado that forms right on the edge of a city and rapidly intensifies into EF4/EF5 strength as it impacts dense neighborhoods and busy commercial districts.
I live near Springfield and the day after it happened to help cleanup. It was unlike anything I have even seen. I've lived in tornado alley my whole life, but that was something else.
I used to live a few hours east in a small town called Theodosia but by the time the tornado moved through i was being settling into my new old town (its weird as i moved back to my hometown after spending like 7 years down there) but see that much damage not too terribly far from where i used to live hit me like a semi truck didn't break down but it was something i would never forget
My birthday is 4/27… We all were watching the news instead of celebrating and thought that those storms would be the worst of it for the year… How wrong we were.
There is a documantary here on yt, 20 minutes in May, it's from the perspective of the disaster manager, very good to watch to, gives a good view on. The aftermath
This tornado has been covered so many times, but you've once again managed to dig for stories and impacts that no one has highlighted, and made it engaging, interesting, and emotionally moving. I appreciate all the work that went into this.
Oh god, that's so tragic for someone to die the day of their high school graduation
If you loot at a disaster sight, you are lower than the lowest.
Since you mentioned NASCAR it got me to wonder if you could do a video on NASCAR and it's unique relationship with wether? Be it vortex theory, the time a Tornado in Atlanta destroyed a major piece of NASCAR history, or the the tragedy that happened at Pocono during a thunderstorm and many more instances it could make a really good video.
I'm 23 and at age 10 I still remember watching Mike Bedis's coverage of the damage live. That image of the hospital is still burned into my memory.
19:29 – Closed Captioning thinks you said "Slow moving whore" instead of "Slow moving horror".
EF scale updates in the works yaaaay!
As always these are amazing documentaries. They never disappoint. Super excited for the March 24-27 2023 documentary. That one’s still fresh in my mind.
I remember this like it happened yesterday. By the time the sirens went off it was already too late. In matter of fact the sirens were already gone.
Very very, nice looking tornado.
Man, I was just a kid when this happened but up in Canada, we remember it clear as day. It was all over the news, every channel, breaking news covering the damage, like it was a Terrorist Attack. I was young at the time, so I didn't understand it, but I can barely remember the shock and speechlessness of the people around me. In Ontario, Tornadoes are a rarity, but we are familiar with them. We only get maybe 10 a year. But, seeing Joplin on the news was something else. The most raw and pure definition of "Absolute Carnage".
When you hear "Monster Tornado", you think of the Joplin Storm. It was invisible killer that sucker-punched the town when they didn't belive it was there until it was too late. Glad to see it's recovered and rebuilt, mostly. Fun Fact, Joplin is the only other town I'm familiar with, alongside Moore, that have "Driveways to nowhere". It's a high population of empty plots of land in residential areas where the strong Tornadoes have leveled homes, and people just left and didn't rebuild, leaving only their driveway behind.
Here’s something freaky…
The Plainfield Tornado in 1990 was rain wrapped throughout its entire lifespan, & 29 people died.
While the Joplin Tornado in 2011 was first photogenic, then later became rain wrapped, & ended up killing 158 people.
How did that happen?!
Great job on this video, Alferia. The improvements in editing really made this great!❤
To be honest, I’ve been waiting for this video on this channel about the Joplin tornado. The first time I got introduced to this event was just by the I survived book.
I am from Baxter springs Kansas, the storms merged right over our town, will never forget that day as long as I live, I’ve never seen the sky like jt was
Absolutely love your videos. Hoping one day you can cover the 2012 Henryville, Indiana tornado. I’m interested to know the weather patterns that day, and it’s so overlooked
Been waiting for you to cover the Joplin tornado 🙌🏼🙌🏼
161? peopel need to watch and pay attention to severe weather… i hear tornado watches/warnings almost every year near Cincinnati Ohio but for 40 years i still have never seen one.. but i still heed tornado warnings, weather its a false warning or not, people need to take action, the NOAA, SPC and EM can only do so much.. these storms are still unknown, no body can predict where and when these damages will incur/ …. stay weather aware! Dont be scared.. Be Prepaired!
Stories like these are why you never ask a first responder what the worst thing they've seen is. People who are trained to handle these things can't always cope, so I'm sure you can imagine the psychological toll on people who don't see things like this
Regarding Ivan's injuries: Holy shit!
When I saw Jamie Mac's outline I about screamed.
Mcdoush
I live in Joplin now, and i can tell you they've done a great job of rebuilding. Aside from a few empty house lots, you can't even tell it ever happened.
I remember randomly being recommended your Jarrell video almost 2 years ago and thinking, "Wow this is really high production value for such a small channel." Now, you're about to hit 50k. Congrats, it's well deserved.
Its a sobering grim reminder just how devastating nature can get.
When an EF5 is going to basically hit your area directly adjacent to its center, with winds hitting 300MPH+…theres really not a whole hell of a lot you can physically do but hope and pray where your at holds together long enough for you to survive.
That bit with the Pizza hut…those two tried so hard to save everyone present among them…
The skies above their heads? They weren’t below their feet?
I called people that I knew to obtain Springfield NWS's backdoor phone number. Talked to the SOO, who had been on the survey team the day before. At that point, the official NWS call was an F4. I told him that I begged to differ, and told him why.
Screw the engineering surveys… yeah, they hold some relevance. But I used the trees. Trees always show the damage that they took. Before that storm, and to this day, I can almost always call the storm strength correctly by how the trees remain. Notably, there is what I call "nubbing". Go look at F2 to F5 pictures that have been confirmed and that have the remains of the trees. You should see the pattern well… it's not hard at all. I told Springfield NWS's SOO that it was "F5 nubbing", because so many were "nubbed" closer to the ground than F4s. Asked him to just take a look. Doesn't sound scientific, I know… but within 5 hours, they went from F4 to F5. And it stands to this day. I couldn't have been all me, but I invite all of you to explore it yourself.
It really does work… Screw the building codes… the trees are all built the same, so I use them. Try it.
I called people that I knew to obtain Springfield NWS's backdoor phone number. Talked to the SOO, who had been on the survey team the day before. At that point, the official NWS call was an F4. I told him that I begged to differ, and told him why.
Screw the engineering surveys… yeah, they hold some relevance. But I used the trees. Trees always show the damage that they took. Before that storm, and to this day, I can almost always call the storm strength correctly by how the trees remain. Notably, there is what I call "nubbing". Go look at F2 to F5 pictures that have been confirmed and that have the remains of the trees. You should see the pattern well… it's not hard at all. I told Springfield NWS's SOO that it was "F5 nubbing", because so many were "nubbed" closer to the ground than F4s. Asked him to just take a look. Doesn't sound scientific, I know… but within 5 hours, they went from F4 to F5. And it stands to this day. I couldn't have been all me, but I invite all of you to explore it yourself.
It really does work… Screw the building codes… the trees are all built the same, so I use them. Try it.
The Joplin 2011 tornado was hands down the worst tornado of the modern era. 158 fatalities.
This was very very well done. I’ve seen countless videos about this tornado and this video gave me a different perspective- focusing more on the personal experience than all the buildings.
And when I heard Pres Obama speak so eloquent I almost cried. But I did weep for the man who found a doll and then found a little girl.
They say this thing was evil- like a monster. Then there were butterfly people.
This was definitely a story of good/evil and God and his angels !!!
May Joplin continue to heal and prosper!!!! ❤💯🙏
Lost my grandmother n the joplin tornado. Live and work around joplin still. Edit she was in greenbrier nursing home.
unrelated, but i loved hearing Cave Story's OST Balcony.
Can you do a video on that EF4 satellite? I thought satellite tornadoes were generally weaker.