JOPLIN, Mo. — Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon says there are tales of survival after a devastating tornado in Joplin, Mo. Nixon says authorities found another 10 people alive in the wreckage. That brings the number of rescued to 17. The storm killed at least 116 people and Nixon says he fears the number will grow higher as search and rescue efforts continue.
WASHINGTON — House Republicans say participants won't see a decrease in services from a bill that proposes cutting $832 million — or 12 percent — from this year's budget for the federal nutrition program. The program provides food for low-income mothers and children. The bill-writers say the cuts are taken from excess dollars in those accounts.
INDIANAPOLIS — Federal officials are reviewing a new Indiana law that restricts public funding for Planned Parenthood. The development could cost the state some of its Medicaid funding. The U.S. Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services says Medicaid doesn't allow states to stop beneficiaries from getting needed health care, such as cancer screenings, because their provider also offers other services.
Killer tornado ripped through the heart of Joplin, a blue-collar southwest Missouri town of 50,000 people, Sunday night, slamming straight into St. John's Regional Medical Center. The hospital confirmed that five of the dead were patients — all of them in critical condition before the tornado hit. A hospital visitor also was killed.
The tornado destroyed possibly "thousands" of homes, Fire Chief Mitch Randles told AP. It leveled hundreds of businesses, including massive ones such as Home Depot and Wal-Mart.
It was the second major tornado disaster in less than a month. In April, a pack of twisters roared across six Southern states, killing more than 300 people, more than two-thirds of them in Alabama.
In Joplin, much of the town's landscape was changed beyond recognition. House after house was reduced to slabs, cars were crushed like soda cans and shaken residents roamed streets in search of missing family members.
The danger was by no means over. Fires from gas leaks burned across town. The smell of ammonia and propane filled the air in some damaged areas. And the forecast looked grim.
The April tornadoes that devastated the South unspooled over a three-day period starting in the Plains. The Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla., said a repeat could be setting up, with a possible large tornado outbreak in the Midwest on Tuesday and bad weather potentially reaching the East Coast by Friday.
Tornado warning could be issued for an entire county while the actual twister may cover only a few miles or less, he said. Plus, people often look outside because "they need some kind of confirmation, they want to see it," Brotzge said, adding that people need to take cover underground.
Joplin residents had about a 20 minute warning, though a powerful rainstorm obscured it from some directions and "they wouldn't have seen it coming," he said. Bluestein added that rain makes it easier to detect by radar, but for spotting, "it's very dangerous because you could be out in front of the storm and not aware of it."
The Southerners had as much as a 24-minute warning, but those storms were too powerful and wide to escape. Entire towns were leveled, from Tuscaloosa, Ala., to Bristol, Va. It was the deadliest tornado outbreak in the U.S. since April 1974.
"The issue we haven't grappled with is how to warn a major urban area," Brotzge said. "We saw that with (Hurricane) Katrina. We saw that with Tuscaloosa. People were warned very well but still had high fatalities."
There is no practical technology to interfere with twisters. Tornadoes have even been known to hit mountains without dissipating, said Thomas W. Schmidlin, a geography professor at Kent State University who studies twisters.
No comments:
Post a Comment