Tornado Flattens Missouri Town, Killing at Least 90
Rescue workers Monday searched for survivors of a massive tornado that killed at least 90 people and leveled schools, businesses and churches in the southwest Missouri city of Joplin.
“We are just in shock and disbelief,” said Trisha Raney, a city councilwoman in the town of about 50,000 people. “We feel like we were in a bad dream.”
The tornado roared through Joplin on Sunday evening, destroying some 2,000 buildings and damaging roughly a third of the city, according to local and state officials.

The death toll—the highest from any tornado in the U.S. in 58 years—was expected to climb Monday as search and rescue workers continued their efforts, said city councilwoman Melodee Colbert-Kean, who serves as vice mayor. She said severe thunderstorms Monday were hampering efforts. “It is utter chaos. It’s like a war zone,” she said.
The Joplin twister was one of 68 reported tornadoes across seven Midwest states over the weekend, from Oklahoma to Wisconsin, according to the National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center. At least one person was killed in Minneapolis and another was killed in Reading, Kan.
The number of known dead in Joplin marks the highest count from a tornado in the U.S. since 1953, when tornadoes in three different U.S. cities killed 90 or more people, according to statistics compiled by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Severe Storms Laboratory.
Joplin city manager Mark Rohr announced the initial death toll at a pre-dawn news conference outside the wreckage of a hospital that took a direct hit from Sunday’s storm.

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