By Kevin Murphy
JOPLIN, Missouri (Reuters) - A monster tornado nearly a mile wide killed at least 89 people in Joplin, Missouri when it tore through the heart of the small Midwestern city, ripping the roof off a hospital and destroying thousands of homes and businesses.
U.S. weather officials said the tornado that hit the city of 50,000 at dinnertime on Sunday may have been the single deadliest in the country since 1953. Over 500 people were injured, U.S. officials said. According to local officials many had massive internal injuries.
Five families were pulled out from under the debris, Missouri Governor Jay Nixon said on CNN. Emergency crews had searched through the night and into Monday's driving rain and thunderstorm for anyone left alive.
Storm survivors told harrowing stories of riding out the winds of 190-198 mph in walk-in coolers in restaurants and convenience stores, hiding in bathtubs and closets, and of running for their lives as the tornado bore down.
More severe storms were predicted for the region, further complicating an intense rescue effort, already hampered by downed power lines, fires ignited from broken gas lines, and spotty communications due to 17 toppled cell phone towers.
"We still believe there are folks alive under the rubble and we're trying hard to reach them," Nixon said.
A number of bodies were found along the city's "restaurant row," on the main commercial street and a local nursing home took a direct hit, Newton County Coroner Mark Bridges said.
Roaring along a path nearly six miles long and about 1/2 mile to 3/4 mile wide, the tornado flattened whole neighborhoods, splintered trees, flipped cars and trucks upside down and into each other. Some 2,000 homes and many other businesses, schools and other buildings were destroyed.
At St John's hospital 180 patients cowered as the fierce winds blew out windows and pulled off the roof. According to AccuWeather.com Senior Meteorologist Alan Reppert, x-ray films from the hospital were found 70 miles away in a driveway.
The city's residents were given about 20 minutes' notice when 25 warning sirens sounded throughout the southwest Missouri town around 6 p.m. CDT, said Jasper County Emergency Management Director Keith Stammers.
But the governor said many people likely were unable to get to shelter in time. "The bottom line was the storm was so loud you probably couldn't hear the sirens going off." He declared a state of emergency and called out the Missouri National Guard to help.
An estimated 20,000 homes and businesses were without power in Joplin, and to help with communications Verizon Wireless, a unit of Verizon Communications Inc, said it was delivering three temporary cell towers to provide emergency wireless service.
The Joplin tornado was the latest in a string of powerful twisters that has wreaked death and devastation across many states, and it comes as much of the Mississippi River valley is underwater from historic flooding.
Twisters killed more than 300 people and did more than $2 billion in damage across southern states last month, killing more than 200 in Alabama alone.
COLLECTING BODIES
Among the thousands sent scurrying for their lives were Floyd Rockwell, 74, and his wife, Donna. They were at a Baptist church service when the tornado hit. Rockwell lay across his 71-year-old wife to try to protect her as the funnel cloud took off the church roof and sent cinder block walls tumbling down.
Rockwell saw at least one body pulled from the rubble but was told six more people did not survive. When the shaken couple tried to return to their home, they found it had also been lost to the storm. Rockwell is sure the couple would have died had they been there instead of at church.
"It's gone," he said. "We're starting over.
Two refrigerated trucks were brought in to serve as a make-shift morgue at a local university and more were being brought in to handle the additional bodies expected, the coroner said.
"I would be surprised if we don't find more today," Bridges said. Multiple victims were taken from several locations around the city, including a nursing home.
"People ... have been pouring in looking for loved ones and they can't find them, looking for friends, can't find them," Bridges said.
Joplin City Councilwoman Melodee Colbert-Kean, who serves as vice mayor, said the town was in a state of "chaos."
"It is just utter devastation anywhere you look to the south and the east -- businesses, apartment complexes, houses, cars, trees, schools, you name it, it is leveled, leveled," she said.
President Barack Obama called the governor Sunday evening to "extend his condolences" to the families of Joplin. White House spokesman Nicholas Shapiro said Federal Emergency Management Agency head Craig Fugate was on his way to Joplin to help with recovery.
The tornado in Joplin was one of a string over the weekend.
On Saturday night, a tornado ripped through Reading, Kansas, killing one and damaging 200 homes and businesses. Another person was killed in a tornado in Minneapolis on Sunday.
The storms that hit Joplin continued a path of destruction eastward through the Ohio Valley region, bringing golf ball-sized hail and 50 mile-per-hour winds to Tennessee, knocking down trees and power lines and stripping roofs from building.
HUDDLED IN RESTAURANT COOLER
Carla Tabares said she, her husband and several families with children squeezed into the kitchen cooler of an Outback Steakhouse restaurant when the twister neared, huddling in the chilly darkness until the howling of the storm passed.
"It was really awful, really scary," she said. The restaurant was largely unscathed, but other buildings were badly damaged. "I'm just thankful we got out alive, and I really feel sorry for the people who didn't."
Joplin-area resident Denise Bayless, 57, said she and her husband were at church when their adult son called to say the tornado was hitting his house. The couple got in their car to race to his aid.
"We just had to weave in and out of debris. Power lines were down everywhere, and you could smell gas," she said.
After stopping to assist a woman they heard screaming, trapped inside her home, Bayless said she ran five blocks to her son's house, where she found every home on the street -- some 20 dwellings including his -- were gone.
"I just lost all my bearings. There was nothing that looked familiar," said Bayless, whose son was unhurt.
Leslie Swatosh, 22, ducked into a liquor store with several others as the tornado descended on them. The group huddled on the floor holding onto each other, and prayed.
"We were getting hit by rocks and I don't even know what hit me," said Swatosh. When the tornado passed, the store was destroyed but those inside were all alive, she said.
"Everyone in that store was blessed. There was nothing of that store left," said Swatosh.
(Writing by Carey Gillam and Matthew Lewis; additional reporting by David Bailey, Colleen Jenkins, Chris Michaud, Tim Ghianni, and Scott DiSavino; Editing by Jackie Frank)
