The “official story” of the Joplin, Missouri tornado of May 22, 2011 is a composite of assertions from public officials and media outlets, collected data from relief agencies, and recalled details of the citizenry. This story developed from the ongoing, dialogical process of storytelling, combining details from many sources and distilling the information into themes shared in the majority of tales, while stripping most individual stories from the overall account. It is the story of a city; individuals are only named as they become symbols of the collective narration. For approximately 38 minutes, beginning at 5:34 pm and ending 6:12 pm on May 22, 2011, Joplin, Missouri endured the brutality of a multi-vortex, EF-5 tornado. Tearing a mile-wide, 13-mile path through the city, the tornado destroyed over 7,500 homes, 18,000 vehicles, numerous churches and schools, injured over 1,000 people, and claimed 161 lives (Onstot 2013). These statistics only count the physically wounded who required medical care and only the deaths of those whose physical wounds caused death, not the untold number of psychologically wounded survivors nor the death of those who took their lives, mistakenly believing it was the only way to relieve the pain. The tornado damaged communications …show more content…
Awarded the Rick Rescorla National Award for Resilience (DHS Press 2012) and praised by President Obama, Missouri Governor Nixon, Director of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano (Associated Press 2012), and every major news outlet, Joplin’s quick response and recovery became a symbol for American hope and determination. During the following summer, communities affected by the Colorado wildfires looked to Joplin as an example of how to rebuild. Even home improvement programs capitalized on Joplin’s image while rebuilding homes, improving facilities, and encouraging volunteers through national attention (Orso
Among these sources will be books, academic journals, oral history, and newspaper articles from the late 1980s and early 1990s. Additionally, newspaper articles documenting the remembrance of the storm at anniversaries of the event will be useful in providing insight into what happened. For example, the New York Times has its’ articles from the 1980s and 1990s available for access through its website. In addition, the Greenville public library has copies of newspapers from all over the nation that have been digitized and stored online that will have information on the events of Hurricane Hugo. The oral history will take the form of interviews with residents of Charleston, South Carolina who were eyewitnesses to Hurricane
The Mapleton Iowa started off with heavy hail and really strong winds. The Mapleton Iowa caused damage and destruction. The Mapleton Iowa tornado “WIND DAMAGE IS CAUSED BY WINDS ESTIMATED AT 136 TO 165 MPH.” “Injured 14 people were injured” and “75% of the town destroyed”. About 600 plus homes were destroyed.
The Oklahoma City Bombing What started as a normal day turned into one of the most deadly bombing attacks in Oklahoma’s History. Claiming hundreds of lives, no one could have foretold the damage done by the bomb to the surrounding area nor to the people who have been affected for a lifetime. The Oklahoma City Bombing with lethal effects, was perpetrated by Timothy McVeigh, and caused the government to rethink security measures. Many lives will never be the same after a act of revenge caused catastrophic results. At 9:00 a.m. on April 19,1995, Timothy McVeigh parked a ryder rental truck in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building(“Oklahoma City Bombing”).
”Damage was estimated at $18 million. An article in the New York Tribune described the destruction: “Besides the heavier blasts, caused by entire buildings exploding, there was the additional horror of shellfire. Hundreds of loaded shells were set off by the flames and soared through the air like monster rockets, exploding in the streets and over the roofs. ”Thousands of people were forced to leave their homes and seek refuge in surrounding towns as a result of the
The storm flooded whole streets in the suburban areas, shutdown subway lines, left millions of homes without power for weeks, closed major airports, and resulted in the evacuation of over 370,000 people in the city (Dolnick NYTimes). Experts believe that the storm also created mini-tornadoes causing even more untold damage that totaled to 15.8 million dollars in damages (Dolnick NYTimes). This storm, that stuck about one year before Sandy, was many New Yorkers’ first experience of a storm that violent. When Irene made contact with New York, it was downgraded to a tropical storm, not a hurricane. This storm is important because it resulted in many policy changes in New York’s legislation in terms of storm preparation and preparedness.
There are some natural disasters that shake up the world and make people depressed, but Hurricane Katrina was like no other. Even though warnings were given and evacuations were held nearly 2,000 people died because of this hurricane. During the storm winds were as fast as 175 mph with heavy rain all through out. People were stranded and about 8,000 homes were destroyed. People had to wait five days at the superdome full of many New Orleans residents.
In 2011, Joplin had a deadly tornado hit down on May 22. It was a regular Sunday afternoon when things started to get bad. It started to get really dark outside, winds at 200 mph, and clouds started to rotate, that's when the tornados started to hit. The joplin tornado wasn't just one big tornado there were 3 small tornados, that come together to make an EF5 tornado. The EF5 tornado hit stores, schools, works, and homes.
A Galveston Daily News reporter in 1900 told the story of the Sept. 8, 1900, hurricane could never truly be written. For many, no words could ever be spoken again about the deadly hurricane that reshaped the Gulf Coast forever. The story of the 1900 Storm is one about
The Joplin Tornado was a very extreme F-5 tornado that killed and injured many people. To begin, the articles "The Evil Swirling Darkness" and the article "A Storm Chaser 's First-Hand Account of the Joplin Tornado" both give very different accounts of what happened the day of the tornado. One example of a difference between the two articles is how the second article talks a lot about how after the tornado had finished, there were no emergency responders that came to help the people who had experienced the tornado. The second article talks about this towards it 's end. Another difference between the two articles is that the storm chaser article talks about pulling people out from the rubble after the tornado took place.
Every once in a while, a nation faces a calamity which shakes its very core and that incident happened in 2005 when Hurricane Katrina hit the US, more specifically the city of New Orleans. Hurricane Katrina was a Category 5 Hurricane which is estimated to have killed over a thousand people. Although Hurricane Katrina caused destruction on many coasts of the US, however, nothing matches the destruction that happened in New Orleans, Louisiana. What makes this issue more devastating and at the same time interesting is that in the case of New Orleans, it was not only nature that caused all the destruction, man played an important role as well, and that’s when the Levee in New Orleans broke. Although many short films and documents have been made on the subject, one of the most interesting and heart wrenching documentary has been made by Spike Lee, When the Levees Broke.
Spike’s decision to interview those from New Orleans and Louisiana offers a much larger quantity of information, and also can introduce the aspects of traditions and civilization of that region that were not completely destroyed by the storm, such as Mardi Gras. To fuel the interest gained from the audience, “authoritative” peers were interviewed to provide more factual and historical information aside from domestic opinion, as well as including media from political meetings, and news
Brown admitting that he knowingly lied to the public about their being up to the task. On the contrary, the officials had a sense of urgency because the rescue and recovery activities were not progressing as envisaged. From the film, it is clear that while citizens were losing their lives, homes, and other property, federal, state, and local officials and agencies wasted time in meetings, negotiating about who was in charge (www.pbs.org, 2). In its examination of Hurricane Katrina, The Storm does well in reviewing the turbulent history of FEMA, more so from the days following the 9/11 attacks.
It ripped up trees, destroyed cars, carried houses into the air… and Justin Sky was caught in the middle of it all. Justin tried to take cover, but everything was being destroyed. Him and his family searched frantically for shelter, and ran into a small building on the edge of town. They ducked into the room, looking for
Tornadoes are the most violent storms ever. They have caused deaths of many people. Then they also destroyed many buildings and acres of land. Many people are not friends with tornadoes as they sometimes destroy someone's business, and lead people's careers to an end. Also some people are just unlucky, because the country they live might have a lot of tornadoes.
A Normal Day of Softball, Not About three years ago we had a softball tournament in Central, Florence. We were about to finish our last game when it began to sprinkle. The light rain was nice and refreshing because it had been so hot that day. As we played a little while longer dark black clouds began to roll in with streaks of lightening. Luckily we did finish the game before the weather got bad.