Deadly EF5 tornado in Joplin, Missouri now subject of a documentary
On the afternoon of May 22, 2011, all of the ingredients came together for a deadly EF5 tornado that forever changed Joplin, Missouri. Now, the storm is the subject of a Netflix documentary.
By
Lauren Fox, AccuWeather staff writer
Published May 21, 2021 5:19 PM EDT
|
Updated Mar 20, 2025 6:58 PM EDT
AccuWeather’s Bernie Rayno spoke with James LaDue of the National Weather Service to discuss the long-term impacts of the Joplin, Missouri, tornado 13 years ago in terms of covering severe weather.
On the afternoon on May 22, 2011, a supercell thunderstorm began making its way from southeastern Kansas into southwestern Missouri, where the city of Joplin is located. With it came what is now known as "the Joplin tornado," the deadliest tornado in modern history.
The infamous tornado became the subject of a documentary that premiered on Netflix on March 19, 2025 called "The Twister: Caught in the Storm."
The film features interviews with storm chasers, weather forecasters, and residents who experienced the tornado firsthand. It also includes real-life footage captured by people in Joplin, providing a close-up perspective on the storm's terrifying power. The documentary not only highlights the catastrophic event but also showcases the resilience and rebuilding efforts of the Joplin community.
In this May 22, 2011 file photo, a destroyed helicopter lies on its side in the parking lot of the Joplin Regional Medical Center in Joplin, Missouri. A sky-darkening storm was working its way into southwest Missouri around dinnertime on a Sunday evening of May 22, 2011, zeroing in on the city of Joplin. As storm sirens blared, one of the nation's deadliest tornados hit - leveling a miles-wide swath of Joplin and leaving 161 people dead. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)
Former AccuWeather Senior Vice President and Chief Innovation Executive Mike Smith was driving to his home in Wichita, Kansas, when he witnessed the formation of the tornado firsthand.
On the Friday leading up to the tornado, which occurred on a Sunday, the National Weather Service (NWS) issued a hazardous weather outlook. At 1:30 p.m. on the day of the tornado, NWS forecasters issued a tornado watch, and then at 5:17 p.m., they issued a tornado warning with 17 minutes to spare before it touched down.
"As I was driving back home to Wichita, I could see the thunderstorms over Joplin, which is unusual," Smith recalled in an interview with AccuWeather in 2021. "They looked unusually large and violent."
Smith said that when his eyes landed on that sight, which he was viewing from quite a distance, he knew he would need to go home and turn on the news to find out what was going on in Joplin.
"The thunderstorm was 135 miles away yet it looked remarkably clear," he said.
In this May 22, 2011, file photo residents walk in the street after a massive tornado hit Joplin, Missouri. A sky-darkening storm was working its way into southwest Missouri around dinnertime on a Sunday evening of May 22, 2011, zeroing in on the city of Joplin. As storm sirens blared, one of the nation's deadliest tornados hit - leveling a miles-wide swath of Joplin and leaving 161 people dead. (AP Photo/Mike Gullett, File)
The next day he caught a flight to AccuWeather's headquarters in State College, Pennsylvania, so he could not stay in the loop with the latest information on the tornado. When he got off the plane, news reports were saying that the death toll had reached the 60s -- a death toll Smith said was "unheard of" from a single tornado in the era of tornado warnings.
"I was astonished. Absolutely astonished," Smith said.
The actual death toll would prove to be more than twice that number.
AccuWeather’s Bernie Rayno spoke with James LaDue of the National Weather Service to discuss the long-term impacts of the Joplin, Missouri, tornado 13 years ago in terms of covering severe weather.
The Joplin tornado was rated an EF5, the highest intensity on the Enhanced Fujita Scale with wind speeds surpassing 200 mph. EF5 tornadoes account for less than 1% of all tornadoes that occur, and one had not occurred in the U.S. in five years.
The tornado that struck Joplin on that Sunday afternoon in 2011 caused a total of 161 fatalities and over 1,000 additional injuries -- making it the deadliest in modern-day recorded history, which dates back to 1954. In all of U.S. history, the tornado is ranked seventh-deadliest and 2011 was the fourth-deadliest year for tornadoes in U.S. history.
The tornado was up to a mile wide, and its path length was 22 miles. The massive twister was on the ground for 38 minutes.
"It is rare for a tornado to remain on the ground for that length of time," Steve Runnels, warning coordination meteorologist for the NWS in Springfield, Missouri, told AccuWeather.
Making matters worse, at times the tornado was moving at just 15 miles per hour, leaving a lot of time for it to cause destruction as it roared across the Joplin landscape.
"You've got a spinning, destructive tornado with 200-mile-per-hour winds taking so long to move through a given area," Runnels said. "It's easy to see why we had destruction."
AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Bob Smerbeck said the tornado resulted in severe damage, especially to the local hospital, which took a direct hit.
More than 10 years later, many in Joplin still carry scars from the ordeal -- both literal and figurative. One of those people scarred by the terror of that day is Mason Lillard, who was 10 at the time.
Lillard was trapped inside a truck in the parking lot of a Home Depot when the massive twister tore through. Her grandfather was inside the store shopping and, as chaos from the storm erupted, he was trapped inside the building while Lillard, her grandmother and her young cousin all waited in the car. The storm struck fast.
“We started praying, and I felt something touch my shoulder, and I looked up and thought it was my cousin,” Lillard, now 20 years old, told FOX 4 Kansas City in a recent interview. “And I looked up and there was two angels in the backseat, one by me and one by him.”
Lillard said the tornado then lifted the truck into the air. “I looked up and saw a two-by-four flying around in circles and saw we were inside the tornado,” she recalled. Her cousin, Lage Grigsby, was thrown from the vehicle, which was toppled onto its side, and he suffered injuries that left him temporarily paralyzed.
FILE - In this May 22, 2011 file photo, emergency personnel walk through a severely damaged neighborhood after a tornado hit Joplin, Mo. A sky-darkening storm was working its way into southwest Missouri around dinnertime on a Sunday evening of May 22, 2011, zeroing in on the city of Joplin. Forecasters knew the storm's potential was fierce and gave early warnings. Then, as storm sirens blared, one of the nation's deadliest tornados hit _ leveling a miles-wide swath of Joplin and leaving 161 people dead. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)
Lillard survived and in the days following the tragedy was dubbed the "miracle kid" by local media for somehow making it out alive. "She’s our feel-good story,” Jeff Reeves said at the time. He led the rescue crew that pulled her from the debris in the Home Depot parking lot after the storm.
But Lillard did not escape unscathed. She was impaled by an iron rod that nearly killed her.
“I had a one-inch piece of angle iron go through my right shoulder, broke seven ribs, puncture my lower lung and come out my back, a quarter-inch from my spine and a quarter-inch from my liver,” she told FOX 4.
The miraculous nature of her survival is not lost on Lillard. “I honestly thought I was going to die. I really did,” she said, adding, “God saved me for a purpose.” Lillard, who said she underwent 13 surgeries in the wake of her injuries, believes that purpose is to help others when they're in need and, according to FOX 4, is studying to be an EMT.
According to The National Institute of Standards and Technology, 553 business structures and nearly 7,500 homes were damaged to some extent from the tornado. More than 3,000 homes were considered either heavily damaged or destroyed.
The damages totaled over $3 billion 2023 USD, making the Joplin tornado the costliest tornado in recorded U.S. history.
The day was unseasonably warm in the Joplin area. The temperature shot up to 83 in Springfield, Missouri, which is located nearly 70 miles east. The high was 6 degrees above the normal high of 77 for the date. At the same time, much cooler air was pressing in from the north and west. The collision of air masses along with the presence of a storm riding along the clash created a volatile situation.
"Everything came together in a small area at the right time to support supercells that could feed off of ramped-up instability," Smerbeck said.
Given that the Joplin tornado was the first in the U.S. to claim more than 100 lives since the Flint, Michigan, tornado that struck way back on June 8, 1953, a regional service assessment team was developed to assess the warning and forecast services provided by the National Weather Service (NWS).
Despite lead warning time from the NWS, and tornado sirens that blared, the team reported that, "The majority of Joplin residents did not immediately take protective action upon receiving a first indication of risk (usually via the local siren system), regardless of the source of the warning. Most first chose to further assess their risk by waiting for, actively seeking, and filtering additional information before taking protective actions.”
Responses varied based on previous experiences with severe weather since the area experiences a fair share of damaging thunderstorms and warnings as a result. In particular, the “perceived frequency of siren activation in Joplin” led many of those who participated in a survey after the disaster "to become desensitized or complacent to this method of warning.” And the blare of the siren was on-and-off that fateful day in Joplin.
FILE - This May 24, 2011 file photo shows the path of a powerful tornado through Joplin, Mo. A sky-darkening storm was working its way into southwest Missouri around dinnertime on a Sunday evening of May 22, 2011, zeroing in on the city of Joplin. Forecasters knew the storm's potential was fierce and gave early warnings. Then, as storm sirens blared, one of the nation's deadliest tornados hit _ leveling a miles-wide swath of Joplin and leaving 161 people dead. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, File)
Many residents reported seeking alternate confirmation of the threat before taking action, including looking to see the tornado for themselves, which was complicated by the fact that the Joplin tornado was rain-wrapped and was difficult or nearly impossible to see -- even for a trained eye.
The report outlined several learnings from the calamity in order to reduce the perception of false alarms and any impacts on credibility, including more impact-based system that would offer more clarity on risk assessment to users.
The NWS now confirms when tornadoes are on the ground in warnings.
“If we were to confirm that a tornado is on the ground, as well as potentially confirm the intensity of that tornado, it will hasten the degree in which people seek additional information, and ultimately, take shelter,” Runnels explained.
The Joplin tornado demonstrated social media’s increasing role in speeding up the disaster response for residents during the immediate aftermath of the destruction.
Many residents quickly turned to Facebook, Twitter and other communication channels to post “how to get help” and “safe and well” pages to get information out about the extent of damage, status of loved ones and available assistance. Also, news outlets began aggregating photos and videos from witnesses that were shared through social media to spread the word more swiftly about the devastation.
One valuable community resource came to be a Facebook page started by the mother-daughter team of Rebecca and Genevieve Williams, who initially created the Joplin Tornado Info page as a means of searching for accurate information during the tornado’s aftermath.
In this May 25, 2011 file photo, Beverly Winans hugs her daughter Debbie Surlin while salvaging items from Winans' devastated home in Joplin, Missouri. A sky-darkening storm was working its way into southwest Missouri around dinnertime on a Sunday evening of May 22, 2011, zeroing in on the city of Joplin. Forecasters knew the storm's potential was fierce and gave early warnings. Then, as storm sirens blared, one of the nation's deadliest tornados hit - leveling a miles-wide swath of Joplin and leaving 161 people dead. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, file)
They managed the page by “squelching rumors, answering questions, and directing people to needed resources” – developing it into a central clearinghouse to disseminate the latest, most trustworthy information on the tornado response, according to the National Association of County Health Officials. The Williams’ page quickly grew, with other residents passing along helpful updates, and eventually with local officials helping supply information on sorely needed resources and other aid.
The Williams’ success with using Facebook during such a devastating incident has often been used as a guide for municipalities all over the country looking to develop social media disaster preparedness plans. In fact, Joplin Tornado Info remains active today, although mainly as a weather monitoring resource, with more than 30,000 followers.
The lessons the mother-and-daughter team learned were put together in a white paper in conjunction with the University of Missouri Extension, and in a book “Using Social Media for Disaster Recovery.”
Even years after the major tornado, Joplin still stands out even to an expert who has been predicting severe weather for decades.
"In terms of a single tornado chewing up people's lives and homes and cars," Smith said in 2021, "Joplin was probably the worst."
Despite the extensive damage and lives lost, the Joplin tornado was not the most violent twister Smith could recall. He said the damage from the tornado was "remarkable" mainly due to the population density in Joplin where the tornado tore through.
The population in Joplin at the time, according to the NWS, was 50,000 and there were roughly 1,500 people living per square mile, Rummels said. In 2012, the population fell more than 2,500 people, the U.S. Cenus Bureau says, and didn't recover to 2011 levels again until 8 years later.
"All tornadoes have damage and all tornadoes are therefore life-threatening," Runnels explained. "What made Joplin different in my experience was the total nature of the destruction," he continued. "You could not see a building that was not damaged over the swath of the path."
The National Weather Service memorialized the twister with a full-page infographic on its track.
On May 6, 2024, an EF1 tornado tracked over 9 miles through the eastern part of Joplin, Missouri. But it was nothing compared to what hit the town thirteen years ago when it was devastated by an enormous and powerful tornado -- which set records that still stand today.
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Deadly EF5 tornado in Joplin, Missouri now subject of a documentary
On the afternoon of May 22, 2011, all of the ingredients came together for a deadly EF5 tornado that forever changed Joplin, Missouri. Now, the storm is the subject of a Netflix documentary.
By Lauren Fox, AccuWeather staff writer
Published May 21, 2021 5:19 PM EDT | Updated Mar 20, 2025 6:58 PM EDT
AccuWeather’s Bernie Rayno spoke with James LaDue of the National Weather Service to discuss the long-term impacts of the Joplin, Missouri, tornado 13 years ago in terms of covering severe weather.
On the afternoon on May 22, 2011, a supercell thunderstorm began making its way from southeastern Kansas into southwestern Missouri, where the city of Joplin is located. With it came what is now known as "the Joplin tornado," the deadliest tornado in modern history.
"The Twister: Caught in the Storm"
The infamous tornado became the subject of a documentary that premiered on Netflix on March 19, 2025 called "The Twister: Caught in the Storm."
The film features interviews with storm chasers, weather forecasters, and residents who experienced the tornado firsthand. It also includes real-life footage captured by people in Joplin, providing a close-up perspective on the storm's terrifying power. The documentary not only highlights the catastrophic event but also showcases the resilience and rebuilding efforts of the Joplin community.
In this May 22, 2011 file photo, a destroyed helicopter lies on its side in the parking lot of the Joplin Regional Medical Center in Joplin, Missouri. A sky-darkening storm was working its way into southwest Missouri around dinnertime on a Sunday evening of May 22, 2011, zeroing in on the city of Joplin. As storm sirens blared, one of the nation's deadliest tornados hit - leveling a miles-wide swath of Joplin and leaving 161 people dead. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)
Stories from the storm
Former AccuWeather Senior Vice President and Chief Innovation Executive Mike Smith was driving to his home in Wichita, Kansas, when he witnessed the formation of the tornado firsthand.
On the Friday leading up to the tornado, which occurred on a Sunday, the National Weather Service (NWS) issued a hazardous weather outlook. At 1:30 p.m. on the day of the tornado, NWS forecasters issued a tornado watch, and then at 5:17 p.m., they issued a tornado warning with 17 minutes to spare before it touched down.
"As I was driving back home to Wichita, I could see the thunderstorms over Joplin, which is unusual," Smith recalled in an interview with AccuWeather in 2021. "They looked unusually large and violent."
Smith said that when his eyes landed on that sight, which he was viewing from quite a distance, he knew he would need to go home and turn on the news to find out what was going on in Joplin.
"The thunderstorm was 135 miles away yet it looked remarkably clear," he said.
In this May 22, 2011, file photo residents walk in the street after a massive tornado hit Joplin, Missouri. A sky-darkening storm was working its way into southwest Missouri around dinnertime on a Sunday evening of May 22, 2011, zeroing in on the city of Joplin. As storm sirens blared, one of the nation's deadliest tornados hit - leveling a miles-wide swath of Joplin and leaving 161 people dead. (AP Photo/Mike Gullett, File)
The next day he caught a flight to AccuWeather's headquarters in State College, Pennsylvania, so he could not stay in the loop with the latest information on the tornado. When he got off the plane, news reports were saying that the death toll had reached the 60s -- a death toll Smith said was "unheard of" from a single tornado in the era of tornado warnings.
"I was astonished. Absolutely astonished," Smith said.
The actual death toll would prove to be more than twice that number.
A slow-moving EF5 monster
AccuWeather’s Bernie Rayno spoke with James LaDue of the National Weather Service to discuss the long-term impacts of the Joplin, Missouri, tornado 13 years ago in terms of covering severe weather.
The Joplin tornado was rated an EF5, the highest intensity on the Enhanced Fujita Scale with wind speeds surpassing 200 mph. EF5 tornadoes account for less than 1% of all tornadoes that occur, and one had not occurred in the U.S. in five years.
The tornado that struck Joplin on that Sunday afternoon in 2011 caused a total of 161 fatalities and over 1,000 additional injuries -- making it the deadliest in modern-day recorded history, which dates back to 1954. In all of U.S. history, the tornado is ranked seventh-deadliest and 2011 was the fourth-deadliest year for tornadoes in U.S. history.
The tornado was up to a mile wide, and its path length was 22 miles. The massive twister was on the ground for 38 minutes.
"It is rare for a tornado to remain on the ground for that length of time," Steve Runnels, warning coordination meteorologist for the NWS in Springfield, Missouri, told AccuWeather.
Making matters worse, at times the tornado was moving at just 15 miles per hour, leaving a lot of time for it to cause destruction as it roared across the Joplin landscape.
"You've got a spinning, destructive tornado with 200-mile-per-hour winds taking so long to move through a given area," Runnels said. "It's easy to see why we had destruction."
AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Bob Smerbeck said the tornado resulted in severe damage, especially to the local hospital, which took a direct hit.
'We were inside the tornado'
More than 10 years later, many in Joplin still carry scars from the ordeal -- both literal and figurative. One of those people scarred by the terror of that day is Mason Lillard, who was 10 at the time.
Lillard was trapped inside a truck in the parking lot of a Home Depot when the massive twister tore through. Her grandfather was inside the store shopping and, as chaos from the storm erupted, he was trapped inside the building while Lillard, her grandmother and her young cousin all waited in the car. The storm struck fast.
“We started praying, and I felt something touch my shoulder, and I looked up and thought it was my cousin,” Lillard, now 20 years old, told FOX 4 Kansas City in a recent interview. “And I looked up and there was two angels in the backseat, one by me and one by him.”
Lillard said the tornado then lifted the truck into the air. “I looked up and saw a two-by-four flying around in circles and saw we were inside the tornado,” she recalled. Her cousin, Lage Grigsby, was thrown from the vehicle, which was toppled onto its side, and he suffered injuries that left him temporarily paralyzed.
FILE - In this May 22, 2011 file photo, emergency personnel walk through a severely damaged neighborhood after a tornado hit Joplin, Mo. A sky-darkening storm was working its way into southwest Missouri around dinnertime on a Sunday evening of May 22, 2011, zeroing in on the city of Joplin. Forecasters knew the storm's potential was fierce and gave early warnings. Then, as storm sirens blared, one of the nation's deadliest tornados hit _ leveling a miles-wide swath of Joplin and leaving 161 people dead. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)
Lillard survived and in the days following the tragedy was dubbed the "miracle kid" by local media for somehow making it out alive. "She’s our feel-good story,” Jeff Reeves said at the time. He led the rescue crew that pulled her from the debris in the Home Depot parking lot after the storm.
But Lillard did not escape unscathed. She was impaled by an iron rod that nearly killed her.
“I had a one-inch piece of angle iron go through my right shoulder, broke seven ribs, puncture my lower lung and come out my back, a quarter-inch from my spine and a quarter-inch from my liver,” she told FOX 4.
The miraculous nature of her survival is not lost on Lillard. “I honestly thought I was going to die. I really did,” she said, adding, “God saved me for a purpose.” Lillard, who said she underwent 13 surgeries in the wake of her injuries, believes that purpose is to help others when they're in need and, according to FOX 4, is studying to be an EMT.
According to The National Institute of Standards and Technology, 553 business structures and nearly 7,500 homes were damaged to some extent from the tornado. More than 3,000 homes were considered either heavily damaged or destroyed.
The damages totaled over $3 billion 2023 USD, making the Joplin tornado the costliest tornado in recorded U.S. history.
The day was unseasonably warm in the Joplin area. The temperature shot up to 83 in Springfield, Missouri, which is located nearly 70 miles east. The high was 6 degrees above the normal high of 77 for the date. At the same time, much cooler air was pressing in from the north and west. The collision of air masses along with the presence of a storm riding along the clash created a volatile situation.
"Everything came together in a small area at the right time to support supercells that could feed off of ramped-up instability," Smerbeck said.
Waiting to take cover
Given that the Joplin tornado was the first in the U.S. to claim more than 100 lives since the Flint, Michigan, tornado that struck way back on June 8, 1953, a regional service assessment team was developed to assess the warning and forecast services provided by the National Weather Service (NWS).
Despite lead warning time from the NWS, and tornado sirens that blared, the team reported that, "The majority of Joplin residents did not immediately take protective action upon receiving a first indication of risk (usually via the local siren system), regardless of the source of the warning. Most first chose to further assess their risk by waiting for, actively seeking, and filtering additional information before taking protective actions.”
Responses varied based on previous experiences with severe weather since the area experiences a fair share of damaging thunderstorms and warnings as a result. In particular, the “perceived frequency of siren activation in Joplin” led many of those who participated in a survey after the disaster "to become desensitized or complacent to this method of warning.” And the blare of the siren was on-and-off that fateful day in Joplin.
FILE - This May 24, 2011 file photo shows the path of a powerful tornado through Joplin, Mo. A sky-darkening storm was working its way into southwest Missouri around dinnertime on a Sunday evening of May 22, 2011, zeroing in on the city of Joplin. Forecasters knew the storm's potential was fierce and gave early warnings. Then, as storm sirens blared, one of the nation's deadliest tornados hit _ leveling a miles-wide swath of Joplin and leaving 161 people dead. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, File)
Many residents reported seeking alternate confirmation of the threat before taking action, including looking to see the tornado for themselves, which was complicated by the fact that the Joplin tornado was rain-wrapped and was difficult or nearly impossible to see -- even for a trained eye.
The report outlined several learnings from the calamity in order to reduce the perception of false alarms and any impacts on credibility, including more impact-based system that would offer more clarity on risk assessment to users.
The NWS now confirms when tornadoes are on the ground in warnings.
“If we were to confirm that a tornado is on the ground, as well as potentially confirm the intensity of that tornado, it will hasten the degree in which people seek additional information, and ultimately, take shelter,” Runnels explained.
Growing role of social media during crisis
The Joplin tornado demonstrated social media’s increasing role in speeding up the disaster response for residents during the immediate aftermath of the destruction.
Many residents quickly turned to Facebook, Twitter and other communication channels to post “how to get help” and “safe and well” pages to get information out about the extent of damage, status of loved ones and available assistance. Also, news outlets began aggregating photos and videos from witnesses that were shared through social media to spread the word more swiftly about the devastation.
One valuable community resource came to be a Facebook page started by the mother-daughter team of Rebecca and Genevieve Williams, who initially created the Joplin Tornado Info page as a means of searching for accurate information during the tornado’s aftermath.
In this May 25, 2011 file photo, Beverly Winans hugs her daughter Debbie Surlin while salvaging items from Winans' devastated home in Joplin, Missouri. A sky-darkening storm was working its way into southwest Missouri around dinnertime on a Sunday evening of May 22, 2011, zeroing in on the city of Joplin. Forecasters knew the storm's potential was fierce and gave early warnings. Then, as storm sirens blared, one of the nation's deadliest tornados hit - leveling a miles-wide swath of Joplin and leaving 161 people dead. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, file)
They managed the page by “squelching rumors, answering questions, and directing people to needed resources” – developing it into a central clearinghouse to disseminate the latest, most trustworthy information on the tornado response, according to the National Association of County Health Officials. The Williams’ page quickly grew, with other residents passing along helpful updates, and eventually with local officials helping supply information on sorely needed resources and other aid.
The Williams’ success with using Facebook during such a devastating incident has often been used as a guide for municipalities all over the country looking to develop social media disaster preparedness plans. In fact, Joplin Tornado Info remains active today, although mainly as a weather monitoring resource, with more than 30,000 followers.
The lessons the mother-and-daughter team learned were put together in a white paper in conjunction with the University of Missouri Extension, and in a book “Using Social Media for Disaster Recovery.”
Joplin was 'probably the worst'
Even years after the major tornado, Joplin still stands out even to an expert who has been predicting severe weather for decades.
"In terms of a single tornado chewing up people's lives and homes and cars," Smith said in 2021, "Joplin was probably the worst."
Despite the extensive damage and lives lost, the Joplin tornado was not the most violent twister Smith could recall. He said the damage from the tornado was "remarkable" mainly due to the population density in Joplin where the tornado tore through.
The population in Joplin at the time, according to the NWS, was 50,000 and there were roughly 1,500 people living per square mile, Rummels said. In 2012, the population fell more than 2,500 people, the U.S. Cenus Bureau says, and didn't recover to 2011 levels again until 8 years later.
"All tornadoes have damage and all tornadoes are therefore life-threatening," Runnels explained. "What made Joplin different in my experience was the total nature of the destruction," he continued. "You could not see a building that was not damaged over the swath of the path."
The National Weather Service memorialized the twister with a full-page infographic on its track.
On May 6, 2024, an EF1 tornado tracked over 9 miles through the eastern part of Joplin, Missouri. But it was nothing compared to what hit the town thirteen years ago when it was devastated by an enormous and powerful tornado -- which set records that still stand today.
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