That Joplin tornado that went down on the 22nd of May was serious business. Check out these high resolution photos of the Ariel Assessment. It makes you think twice how anyone could survive
such an unexpected catastrophe. And yes the second picture is a Home Depot.

Wow

Did you guy's hear about this nutsack?

CORDOVA, Ala. -- James Ruston's house was knocked off its foundation by tornadoes that barreled through town last month and is still uninhabitable. He thought help had finally arrived when a truck pulled up to his property with a mobile home from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Then he got the call: Single-wide mobile homes, like the FEMA one, are illegal in the city of Cordova.

The city's refusal to let homeless residents occupy temporary housing provided by FEMA has sparked outrage in this central Alabama town of 2,000, with angry citizens filling a meeting last week and circulating petitions to remove the man many blame for the decision, Mayor Jack Scott.

Ruston and many others view the city's decision as heartless, a sign that leaders don't care that some people are barely surviving in the rubble of a blue-collar town.

"People have to live somewhere. What's it matter if it's in a trailer?" asked Felicia Boston, standing on the debris-strewn lot where a friend has lived in a tent since a tornado destroyed his home on April 27.



Scott has heard all the complaints, and he isn't apologizing. He said he doesn't want run-down mobile homes parked all over town years from now.

"I don't feel guilty," he said. "I can look anyone in the eye."

Located about 35 miles northwest of Birmingham, Cordova was hit by a pair of powerful tornadoes on April 27, the day twisters killed more than 300 people across the Southeast. Officials say 238 died in Alabama, the highest death toll for any state in a spring of violent weather.


An EF-3 twister with winds of at least 140 mph slammed into the town around 5:30 a.m., knocking out power and damaging numerous buildings. An EF-4 with winds around 170 mph struck about 12 hours later, killing four people and cutting a path of destruction a half-mile wide through town.

Scores of homes, businesses and city buildings were destroyed or damaged by the time the winds died down. Nearly every red-brick storefront was whacked along Main Street, which is now deserted and blocked by a chain-link fence.

Residents whose homes were destroyed assumed they would be able to live in one of the hundreds of long, skinny mobile homes that FEMA is providing as temporary housing for tornado victims. After all, the Cordova Police Department, a pharmacy, a bank and City Hall all have moved into similar trailers since the storm.

But the city enacted a law three years ago that bans the type of mobile homes provided by FEMA, called single-wide trailers. Older single-wide mobile homes were grandfathered in under the law and double-wide mobile homes are still allowed, Scott said, but new single-wides aren't allowed and a tornado isn't any reason to change the law, even temporarily.

The city's stance prompted an outcry that's not getting any quieter, especially with other cities with similar laws granting waivers. About 200 people attended a community meeting last night where some tried to shout down Scott.

"There are trailers all over here but (Scott) wants to clean all the trash out. He doesn't like lower-class people," said Harvey Hastings.

The cotton mill, brick plant and coal mine that once made Cordova prosperous shut down years ago, but native Tony Tidwell said leaders seem to believe residents are flush with cash and can afford to build big, new houses to replace the mobile homes and small frame homes that twisters blew away.

"Let the people have a place to live," he said. To make matters worse, he said, the city is imposing a mean double standard when it refuses to let residents live in FEMA trailers but is using a nearly identical structure for police headquarters.

Scott said the city can use small trailers because it's for the common good.

"It's temporary and we know it's temporary," said the mayor. "We're trying to provide services for everyone."

Storm victims are supposed to live in FEMA housing for no longer than 18 months after a disaster, yet about 260 campers are still occupied by survivors of hurricanes Katrina and Rita on the Gulf Coast last more than five years after those storms. The same thing could happen in Cordova if the city bends it rules to help tornado victims, Scott said.

Officials with FEMA have said it's a local issue and they remain ready to offer help to storm victims.

"We have several options available, and work with each community, to provide the best alternative possible for those who need housing assistance," Michael Byrne, FEMA's federal coordinating officer for Alabama, said in a statement. "We stand ready to help."

Ruston said he doesn't want to live in a mobile home forever, and he didn't want to leave Cordova to move in with a relative after his FEMA trailer was turned away.

Now, he said, it might not be worth going back.

"If we're going to have a mayor like that I'll just go elsewhere," he said.

Pat, what I don't understand is why people don't revolt and riot against those morons who govern the city, I think also police would support it and PHISICALLY drive the mayor out of his office, people's rights come first and like in any other place if rights are not respected violence is the only way to go

Those photos are unbelievable...wow.

That is intense Denny

What a mess that is. There you see you can be happy with whatever you got materialisticly spoken.
Wow they lost like everything.

And then that knucklehead keeping some rule ordinance or whatnot up in that type of situation is just flat out disrespektful and dumb.




Say what?
What a dumb@ss



Not even temporaily.

Look at the darn pics. His house probably aint in it and if he will take a hotel in the next town or what?

Again

What a dumb@ss

I have friends and family in Joplin, and the pictures only show half of what really happened. I have a photo on my phone, that was sent to me by one of my friends, of a toothpick buried at least 2" in a house foundation. One of my other friends, had his truck (a Freightliner Century Class tractor) thrown over 700yards, now mind you...we are talking about TRACTOR (of the tractor trailer part), that was thrown 700+ yards. Peoples houses were not just destroyed, they were simply gone.

The media only shows a part of it, what happened in Joplin is more then catastrophic, its devistating. Joplin will never be the same, never. People have lost everything, some only have the clothes they have on their back, the rest of their belongings are gone.

Imagine hurricane andrew x5, thats about the scope of the tornado in Joplin.

I just said to my girlfriend after reading all that," why dont those ppl storm city hall or do something," i mean seriously their tax dollars pay the officials... that guy needs to never work in politics again. what a major piece fo poop. WAY TO TAKE CARE OF YOUR PEOPLE AND YOUR COMMUNITY. I can not believe that someone who is supposed to be a servant of the people would let these citizens suffer liek that after losing everything they have. i lived ina trailer for five yrs almost six my neighborhood was clean and not trashy and full of kids and families. ppl who work for a living.. unbelievable... something should be done about this.

If i wer mayor of a nearby city and had the land to do so and utilities and such I would open my doors to fema and welcome those victims to live in my jurisdiction and set up housing. The people of that town should be moved elsewhere and just abandon the place leave the mayor nothing. I could go on and on but this is just inhumane and disgusting. That man doesnt deserve another breath. he is a pathetic excuse for a human being not to mention a town leader of the people. Can anyone do anything about this or what?

Welcome to politics! Does it affect me? No? The hell with it then, let em suffer, thats their motto!

I'm surprised this guy is still breathing.

X2

James; He may still be breathing, but he won't be mayor much longer. It seem's just about everyone in town signed the petition to have him recalled. I guess the city council is in trouble as well. Funny part was, they tried to say he was an independant. UPI reported a few day's ago, he's a registered repug.
From what I'm reading, FEMA is getting very high mark's for it's response in all the effected states for a change.

Pat

after a couple of the disaters Fema had no other choice but to improve.
Happy that in regards to Fema it is working out. It is a major logistical task for what they are doing. Not to even mention funding and whatnot

George lopez & what his acronym for FEMA was...lol.

Let see what awaits us for this season..

The guy who is running FEMA now is the former Florida FEMA head. Instead of a guy who's never done anything but run a horse show.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- The messages came in a fast and furious onslaught: a series of massively powerful tornadoes were ripping across Alabama and other parts of the South.

On the receiving end of frantic descriptions of entire neighborhoods wiped out by last week's pulverizing storms that killed 328, Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator Craig Fugate urged President Barack Obama to immediately sign an emergency disaster declaration for Alabama.
The near immediate response was starkly different from past catastrophes.
Likely the most memorable, in 2005, as the damage from Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans' broken levees was coming into full view, the country and the flooded city wondered out loud: Where is the federal government?
When FEMA finally arrived, its response seemed inept, made more painful by President George W. Bush's backslapping praise of then-FEMA chief Michael Brown on national television. Last year's oil spill brought more criticism when Obama didn't tour the region for days and the economy and environment of the Gulf Coast was threatened. Fugate arrived in the region the day after the storms subsided, and Obama joined him on Friday.
Katrina's aftermath prompted federal law changes that allow FEMA to jump in faster with people and supplies.
It looks like Fugate's decision to risk being criticized for sending too much too soon to flattened towns than be left explaining why help took so long to arrive worked to at least make victims feel as if the government cared.
"If you can't tell me it's not bad, I'm going to assume it's bad ... and go," Fugate told The Associated Press as he flew from Alabama, where at least 236 people died -- to tour the devastated town of Smithville, Miss.
Alabama officials lowered the state's death toll and were recounting the number of bodies, a grim task considering some of them were not whole. Officials weren't sure when they would have an accurate count, and said they were still searching for some possible victims.
On Tuesday, more rain was forecast for several of the tornado-damaged states-- Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee and Georgia -- though this round was expected to be more of a nuisance to survivors and volunteers than anything severe.
Fugate said there was plenty more work to do and the cleanup and recovery would be another long-term project.

And though he has been quick to remind anyone who will listen that the states are in charge of responding to the storms, Fugate's office has also been making sure everyone knows what his agency is up to with a flurry of press releases outlining each step.
Questions about the public relations of disaster response are of little concern to Fugate, who was Florida's emergency management director during a quadruplet of hurricanes that pummeled the state in 2004 and then jumped to the aid of neighboring Gulf Coast states in Katrina's aftermath.
"I don't care," Fugate says flatly of his public image. "I'm not worried about my reputation; I'm not worried about my press clippings. I'm worried about the survivors."
Nevertheless, the reaction on the ground has been overwhelmingly positive, even if some folks aren't entirely sure who is in charge yet.
FEMA hadn't yet opened a disaster relief office in Tuscaloosa, Ala., by Sunday afternoon and Marty Fields hadn't seen anyone from the government stopping by with offers of assistance, despite a tree that fell on his wood-frame home and opened a gash in the roof. Still, he wasn't complaining.
"I don't have any complaints," Fields said. "If they were just dealing with this one area I may not be too happy. But it's such a wide area."
By Monday afternoon, FEMA officials reported they opened 11 disaster recovery centers in Alabama and nearly 18,000 households in the state had already registered for FEMA assistance.
The goal, Fugate said, is to anticipate what will be needed and where and get supplies and support moving in that direction.
"If you're waiting to assess, to figure out how bad it is," he said, "you're probably too late."