[buzz of voices]
-[school bell rings]
-[door opens]
[man 1] We were the class of 2011
at Joplin High,
and we all were gettin' ready
for our graduation.
[dramatic music playing]
[reporter 1] A tornado outbreak
rages across the country.
Tuscaloosa, Alabama,
destroyed by a violent twister.
[reporter 2] In a world
with no shortage of natural disasters,
signs are now pointing
toward the apocalypse.
[man 2] Most people I went to school with
thought the world was gonna end.
[reporter 3] The second deadliest
tornado outbreak in US history.
More than 300 twisters.
[man 2] So we called ourselves
the Class of the Apocalypse.
[reporter 2] Camping says mathematical
clues in the Bible add up to May 21st.
[man 3] Most people thought
that was kinda ridiculous.
"Buy this paper
if it's the last thing you do."
-If it's the last thing you do.
-Everybody talking about this.
[man 3] We figured we would
all get together on that night.
-[presenter 1] Three minutes to liftoff.
-[crowd] Five, four, three, two, one.
[beeping]
[woman] We're still alive!
[cheering]
[man 3] A little ominous to think
that we were all just celebrating life
24 hours prior
to the worst thing that could happen.
[man3] That's a tornado.
[woman 1] Where do we go?
It's right around us.
-[man 3] Oh my God! Oh my God!
-[woman 1] Oh my God!
[man 3] Come on! Get in, get in!
[TV presenter 1] Predictions of
the end of the world have come and gone.
[TV presenter 2] The apocalypse
failed to occur on May 21st.
Camping clarified
that a spiritual judgment day began on
[Mac] That day started off pretty rough.
I woke up with one
of the worst hangovers of my life.
We had a huge party. We
we called it the "Staying Alive" party.
[rock music plays]
The world was gonna end.
It was gonna cease to exist.
And we figured
we'd just drink until the next day.
Mac was hungover.
I wanted greasy pizza,
but he wasn't havin' any of that. [laughs]
[playing electric guitar]
[Kaylee] Was it in tune?
-Huh?
-[Kaylee] Was it in tune?
-Not quite.
-[Kaylee] Okay.
I was dating Mac.
We bonded over music.
But Mac was stoked out on weather,
which I thought was really cute.
I was like, "All right."
[TV presenter 3] Janice Huff is upstairs
with more on the storms. Good morning.
Right now, not a whole lot going on.
But the ingredients are there.
The perfect ingredients, unfortunately,
this time of the year for tornadoes.
[Mac] I stepped outside.
And when I looked up,
there was blue sky in all directions.
There was just one storm
coming out of the west all by itself.
[whimpers]
[Mac] There was a huge cumulonimbus cloud.
But the top was just so tall
and so high up in the atmosphere
that you couldn't see the very tip of it.
That was a dead giveaway
that that was an intense thunderstorm.
I guess, technically,
I was an amateur storm chaser,
'cause I've chased so many storms.
But I'd never seen anything like that.
It just blew my mind. It blew my mind.
Mac pulled up the radar.
I remember him pointing at it and saying,
"If anything's gonna spit out a tornado,
it's gonna be a cell like this."
I asked Kaylee and her brother I said,
"Hey, you guys wanna go check this out?"
It was just a done deal at that point.
I think it was unspoken.
"Yeah, let's do this."
[car doors slamming]
-[engine starts]
-[rhythmic beeping]
[suspenseful music playing]
[PA chimes]
[man] May 22nd, 2011,
my mom and I were flying
from San Diego, California,
to Joplin, Missouri.
I definitely was different
than other kids.
A lot of kids were out there playing
football, or soccer, or watching cartoons.
All I wanted to do
was watch the Weather Channel
or report the weather myself.
Chad Crilley reporting live here
at Big Bear, California,
where we're dealing with heavy snow.
-Whoa!
-[woman laughing]
Severe weather is continuing
to pound southern California.
-[woman] You feel like a superstar?
-[both laugh]
At nine years old, I became the kidcaster.
And then I became the teencaster.
Good morning, everyone.
Take a peek at this.
We're starting out this morning
[Chad] I probably knew more about weather
than most people gave me credit for.
I particularly
took an interest in tornadoes.
[horn blaring]
-You've gotta get further ahead of it.
-I know what I'm doing.
[Chad] The first time
that I watched Twister,
it totally tapped into my curiosity
about what has to happen for something
as violent as a big tornado to occur.
But also what that must be like
to experience in person.
Temperatures are gonna be
goin' into the upper 60s today.
Like I said, just a really nice day.
[Chad] I was getting a little bored
of San Diego weather.
My dream was always to report the weather
where there was weather.
I wanted to go to an area in the Midwest
known as Tornado Alley
that is more susceptible to tornadoes
than anywhere else in the world
because of the environment there.
Warm and cold air meet up together
and cause incredibly strong rotations,
which produce tornadoes.
Without telling my mom,
I emailed a number of TV meteorologists
across the Midwest.
I got one email back.
[theme music playing]
Well, it's turned out to be
a very gloomy evening across the area
as we have been seeing thunderstorms
through central Texas.
[Chad] And that was from meteorologist
Doug Heady at KOAM in Joplin.
It's going to get pretty nasty
after midnight.
Chad said that he wanted to come to
Tornado Alley and do some job shadowing.
He even sent me some videos.
[Chad] After months of planning,
the KPPRLA Weather Center
[Heady] He had a studio in his garage.
Meteorologist Chad Crilley here
joining you
I could tell Chad was serious.
But because he was 13,
I obviously had to say,
"Hey, Chad, I gotta talk to your mom."
I was a little perplexed.
I thought, "Okay, who is this guy?"
"And where is Joplin?"
Chad kind of said he wanted to go alone.
And I said, "That's not happening.
I'm going with you."
[Doug] Historically, our biggest tornadoes
always occur in May.
I was like, "May 22nd, May 23rd, May 24th,
we're gonna have severe weather."
So they booked their flight tickets.
Chad had the window seat,
and he looked over at me,
and he said, "Mom,
the weather's really weird right now."
[tense music playing]
We began our descent into Joplin.
It started to get pretty bumpy.
[PA] Ladies and gentlemen, we are flying
through a turbulent area. The captain
[Chad's mom] Chad told me
the hotel had a place to take shelter.
When he told me this, I thought,
"What the heck are you talking about?"
"Take shelter? Where are we going?"
[church bell ringing]
[man] That Sunday,
the weather was beautiful.
I remember getting out of church,
washing my car,
and being, like, "It's so nice outside."
Joplin
Ah! [laughs]
Joplin is an interesting place.
Joplin's like the buckle
of the Bible Belt, not just the belt.
There's as many churches on each corner
as there are, like, McDonald's.
[upbeat music playing]
[Cecil] In 2011,
I was a junior in high school.
I would sit with the Christian kids.
I had to hide being g*y somehow.
Like, look at me.
Okay, so this is what happened
to Holly's face.
Doesn't she look great?
-No. This lipstick, really?
-[laughing]
I had, like, JC Chasez hair or whatever
from, like, NSYNC period. Work!
I love Jesus, and I love God,
but I didn't know if his people loved me.
At school, I was bullied.
Like, girls would write "q*eer"
on pieces of paper and flick it at me.
Kids were so mean.
I always thought, like,
when was God gonna come take me away?
'Cause I hated it here.
[announcer] This is the KZRG Newswatch
with Chad Elliott and Josh Marsh.
[man 1] Joplin High School
graduation will be held
at Missouri Southern State University
in the afternoon.
For the graduates, it's a big day.
The graduation
[Keegan] I was getting ready
to graduate school.
Everyone was gonna be spreading out
and going on to the next phase of life,
and so I was excited.
[poignant music playing]
[Keegan] At Joplin High,
we had all the different cliques.
I would put myself in the jock category.
[student] More than 2,100 students
filled the halls of Joplin High School.
With this many students,
it's hard to believe
any student could
reach the top of the popularity ladder,
but the social differences
could not be more distinct.
This is the story of the most popular
students at Joplin High.
Hi, guys, I'm Will Norton for JET-14.
[Keegan] So Will, who's a really
good friend, had a YouTube channel.
Willdabeast, a bunch of numbers.
I don't know. I didn't visit it.
I wasn't a fan.
I was a a friend of his, right?
But Will got me into one video.
[Will] We have Keegan, the womanizer jock.
Oh, that's I don't know.
[Keegan] Will made me the womanizer jock,
and I guess that's what
others viewed me as, uh, back then,
and I I may have been.
I'm in high school. I don't feel I need
to be settled down and be with one person.
[announcer] Wide receiver
at 6'1", 200 pounds, senior,
number 85, Keegan Henry!
[cheering]
Being the captain of the football team,
girls would definitely take notice.
[cheerleaders chanting]
[crowd cheering]
[Keegan] I loved playing.
Friday night lights.
Wear your town on your chest.
There's somethin' to be said about that.
I didn't wanna go to graduation.
I thought it was kind of over-the-top.
One of my sisters was giving me sh*t
that my shirt was all wrinkled.
I'm like, "I don't need to iron
the damn thing. Just let's get going."
[wind rustling]
[Mac] The storms always come in
from the west for the most part,
so we drove out
to the opener areas towards Kansas.
Plenty of thunderstorms
don't drop tornadoes,
but when the conditions are perfect,
that's when it happens.
The more intense a thunderstorm gets,
the more it starts rotating.
We call that a mesocyclone.
Once it gets to a certain point,
it drops a tornado.
It is like magic. It's just breathtaking.
[presenter] The greatest number
of tornadoes occur
in the flatland areas
east of the Rocky Mountains.
[Kaylee] Growing up in Tornado Alley,
tornadoes are business as usual.
-You would hear tornado sirens every year.
-[siren blaring]
But nobody would really
think twice about 'em.
Usually, it would just
bounce some cows around out in a field.
[snorting and neighing]
[Mac] Kaylee and her brother Eric
went on multiple rides with me
to go check storms out.
We would just listen to music and drive.
[heavy metal music playing
over car speakers]
[Kaylee] Mac is the total opposite of me
in a lot of ways.
I was fascinated by askin' him,
"What are you thinkin'?"
And, like, the answer,
in all honesty, was, "Nothin'."
I'm like, "How could that be?
How can you be thinkin' about nothin'?"
I would have no less than a dozen
train of thoughts all the time,
but I figured out how to turn that off.
[volume increasing]
[Kaylee] Heavy metal.
It's in your face,
and that, I think,
takes away from bein' in my head.
[applause and cheering]
[Kaylee] I had just got
my bachelor's degree
in mathematics, computational mathematics,
information technology,
and computer information science.
[poignant music playing]
But I had challenges
when I was younger making friends.
I guess I was always
light in the confidence department.
I tried to keep myself around people
that make me feel comfortable and secure.
My brother Eric and I
Put it simply, he's my homey. [laughs]
And Mac chilled me out.
When we were near Kansas,
we stopped at the state line
at this gas station
and watched the storm.
[wind gusting, heavy rainfall]
[Mac] We were a couple of miles
away from Joplin.
And we were pullin' out our cameras
to just record anything
that could possibly happen.
I was an adrenaline junkie, I suppose.
I was always out to catch a thrill.
I didn't know enough to be goin' out
and doin' what I was doin'.
It was irresponsible, a little bit, of me.
But I I think it was just exciting.
It was an adventure every time.
["Land of Hope and Glory" playing on PA]
[applause and cheering]
[Keegan] Joplin High School,
since there's so many graduates,
they couldn't host them
at Joplin High School.
So we had our graduation
at Missouri Southern State University
just outside of town.
Ladies and gentlemen,
join me in recognizing
the Joplin High School class of 2011.
[cheering]
It's important, and we ask
that you turn off cell phones,
so everyone can enjoy
the ceremony equally.
At this time,
I would like to introduce our members
[Keegan] I'm texting Will,
joking about the speakers,
and just talking about
anything but the graduation.
Thank you, class of 2011.
[Keegan] "Hurry this up.
When do we get outta here?"
'Cause we were bored out of our mind.
I've been spending a lot of time
thinking about the future,
and what lies ahead.
Up until now, I could predict
where I would be in ten years.
Here in Joplin, Missouri, going to school,
and waiting for something big to happen.
[wind gusting]
Today is that something big.
[feedback squeals]
-Thank you.
-[cheering]
[feedback ringing]
-[jingle playing]
-[radio host] FM 102.9, AM 1310.
News Talk, KZRG.
A tornado watch is in effect
until 9:00 this evening.
We do have an elevated risk
for tornadoes and dangerous thunderstorms.
That afternoon, I was going to work.
I worked at a frozen yogurt shop,
CherryBerry.
[dramatic music playing]
[Cecil] Work was just slammed,
and I remember thinking to myself,
"What better time to get frozen yogurt?
We're in a tornado watch."
Back then, people didn't
really care about a storm
until it was, like, a tornado warning.
But whenever the weather would be bad,
I would think it's the end of the world.
I know that sounds crazy,
but at the time, it was everywhere.
It was on movies, like 2012.
It's the Rapture.
The virtuous have gone to heaven
[Cecil] Even in The Simpsons,
they joked about the Rapture.
And in church,
we were learning that it was coming.
The thing that I was most, like,
concerned about was being left behind.
[woman on TV] A lot
of watch boxes out there.
Tornado watches in the red,
the yellow showing where we have
severe thunderstorm watches.
[Cecil] At this time, it was like 4:20.
[forecaster] we are still concerned
[Cecil] And I could hear a creaking.
That was one of the first things
where I thought,
"Oh. People talking about a tornado watch,
it might be actually pretty serious."
[hinges creaking]
[horn honking]
[Chad] After we landed
and we were driving to our hotel,
I texted Doug and let him know
that we had made it safely.
But to my surprise,
he did not respond back.
I thought that was a little peculiar
because Doug always
responded back very quickly.
We found a place to eat dinner.
And as we were walking in,
the wind was so light,
and you couldn't hear any birds chirping.
There was a sense in the air
that something big was happening.
[shop bell rings]
[clicking]
-[rock music starts]
-[Chad] We sat down for dinner.
The restaurant was pretty busy.
There was a baseball game on.
[commentator] Swinging on three and 0,
and he drives it
into the right field corner.
I looked over at Chad,
and he was glued to his phone.
I was looking at my radar app.
I saw a supercell thunderstorm
moving into southwest Missouri.
I was excited, because I knew
we were gonna get some bad weather,
which is exactly
what I came to the Midwest for.
[man 1 on radio] Joplin,
the northwest Joplin country, forming
[Mac] Oh my God,
look at those clouds moving.
there of a rotating long cloud
that they are seeing on County Road.
This being reported
-[Kaylee] Is that gonna drop?
-[Mac] Huh?
[Kaylee] Is that lookin'
like it's droppin'?
[Eric] Yeah, it looks
like it's trying to drop.
[radio] area is also on the table, maybe
There is a lot more drop, dude.
[Kaylee] It's rotating, too.
[Eric] It's comin' down.
[man 2 on radio] At the latest update,
as the watch
-[Kaylee] Guys
-dangerous storm
[Eric] It's trying to drop.
-[Kaylee] It's tryin' to.
-[radio] adverse event, but director
[Kaylee] It was
[inhales, exhales]
unlike anything I had ever seen.
We had we had done this a few times,
and something just changed.
[radio] around the Columbus area.
This is our third
fresh report of a long cloud.
It could be rotating.
-Here in Jasper
-[Kaylee] Guys.
It certainly fluctuates
[Kaylee] My blood ran cold.
Hair stood up all over my body.
Somethin' felt wrong.
So I asked the boys
-[on video] "Do you wanna go?"
-[radio] outside Riverton
[Kaylee] Wanna go?
-[horn honks]
-east, outside
[Kaylee] Wanna go?
The edge of the storm was so black.
Everything about it was just telling me,
"Wow, this is
a really, really strong thunderstorm."
-[man 3 on radio] I'm here.
-[man 2] What's the sit
[Kaylee] We are exactly northeast
of where that will drop.
-Wait
-[thunder crashes]
[rain falling]
[Kaylee] Then the radio popped in.
[Kaylee] Listen.
[man 3] weather services recording
a tornado warning.
A radar indicated tornado is headed
towards the northern end of Joplin
[Kaylee] We are exactly northeast
of this thing. We've gotta go.
It's a tornado on the radar.
-Let's go!
-[radio] people are calling in, saying
-[Kaylee] It's right there.
-[Mac] Oh my God, there it is.
It is. It's round the corner.
I buckled in and set my phone in the dash
so it was looking directly up.
[man 4 on radio] plenty of time,
it's more southwesterly
[Kaylee] Where do I go?
[man 5 on radio]
Golf ball sized hail reported.
[Kaylee] Holy sh*t.
I figured if we could get south of it,
that we could
still have a good vantage point.
We'd be away from
where all that hail was coming down.
[wind gusting]
[Kaylee] We need to get to a place
where we're safe, guys.
[Mac] Yeah, we do.
This wind is sucking in right now.
It's inflow into the f*cking storm.
[Eric] Slow down. There's gonna be
a ramp here on this train track.
[thud]
[Eric] It's either gonna drop there,
a mile away, or on top of us.
This could actually
drop a tornado right now.
[Eric] Just stop right here
on this f*cking hill, yeah.
[Mac] Look at that right there.
All that stuff.
-[Kaylee] Oh my God.
-[Mac] Yeah, yeah.
-[radio] to get out
-[hail thudding]
[Kaylee] I'm stayin' in the car
so we can book it.
[dog barking]
[alarm siren wailing]
These loud sirens started going off.
Sirens that I've never heard
in my entire life.
[wind gusting]
[siren wailing]
The sirens meant a tornado warning
had been issued for where we were.
He said, "I'll be right back.
I'm gonna go outside and check it out."
And I turned to
the customers next to me and I said,
"We just arrived from San Diego."
"Are these sirens anything
that we need to worry about?"
And they reassured me that they go off
all the time and not to worry.
Hearing that from the locals of Joplin,
I thought, "Okay, I'll keep eating dinner.
Everything should be fine."
[siren continues]
[Chad] I immediately noticed
how dark the sky was.
It also had a very green tint to it.
Good evening to you.
Uh, tornado sirens continuing to go off.
You can probably hear it
in the background here.
[high-pitched siren blaring]
There they go.
Definitely time to take shelter
if you're within the Joplin regional area.
Definitely time to take shelter.
[Chad] What I saw next terrified me.
Find the most violent tornado
that you possibly could,
and put it into a radar image.
Seeing the monster tornado
that was coming into town,
I thought that we were gonna be dead.
Chad came running in,
and he grabbed my arm.
And he said, "Mom, we need to go now.
We have to go now."
I said, "No, we're okay. These people say
this happens a lot. Don't worry, Chad."
I was so frustrated, and I wanted to just
get up and scream at the top of my lungs
and say, "We're gonna die
if we don't go take shelter."
I was 13 years old,
had a high-pitched voice,
and I was trying to tell my mom
and these adults what to do.
[commentator] And the Cardinals lead six--
[announcer] We interrupt
regular programming
to bring you this weather alert.
[beeping]
Good evening, everyone.
Meteorologist Doug Heady here
[Chad's mom] The TVs in the restaurant
switched to the local weather station,
and Doug Heady, KOAM, was on.
[Heady] This is now
a confirmed tornado on the ground.
[Chad] Hearing Doug say
that it was on the ground
solidified what I was seeing,
but also made it real.
That's when I knew it was bad.
And at that point, we got up and we ran.
[Doug] You need to take shelter,
as this is a dangerous situation
with one on the ground.
[Heady] I'm on air,
and the tornado developed so fast.
On the radar, I could tell
it was a massive, destructive tornado,
and it was movin' due east,
so it was gonna head right into the city.
-[Doug] Let's pull up our tower cam.
-[whirring]
-[thunder crashes]
-[Heady] It's a very ominous-looking sky.
[Doug] But looking at the tower cam,
I couldn't make out a tornado.
I was panning it around,
trying to figure out where it was.
I could just see
this very dark gray, blackish wall.
[Heady] We are looking due west,
and you can see, uh
that could be it right there,
within that band of rain.
It took me a few seconds to figure out,
"Oh, this is a rain-wrapped tornado."
It's rain-wrapped,
so you're not gonna see it coming.
Very powerful tornadoes have
the potential to wrap in so much moisture
that they do become rain-wrapped.
So I knew most people wouldn't know
there's a monster tornado
right behind that wall.
[wind gusting]
[Mac] We stopped at a gravel lot,
and we were filming
and watching that spot.
[Mac] That is about
to seriously spawn a f*cking tornado.
That is the spot.
Look at that rotation over there.
[crash]
[Eric] You see that?
[Mac] Dude.
Oh my God! Look at those clouds moving.
[wind intensifying]
[Kaylee] It's gettin' dark.
[Kaylee] The sky was darkening
like the sun had been put out.
You know, it was unlike anything
I'd ever seen. Darkness during the day.
It was like eclipse.
A massive storm
was literally blocking the sunlight.
[thunder crashes]
[Eric] Did you see that?
[Kaylee] Yeah. Let's go. Let's go.
-[Eric] Mac, get in!
-[engine starts]
[Mac] Don't freak out.
Don't freak out.
That's the worst thing to do.
[Kaylee] We're about to lose sight
of what's goin' on.
[Eric] We're gonna have to.
[Kaylee] It went from chasin' the storm
to it was chasing us.
[Kaylee] Do you guys see what's right
over there? It's coming at us.
[man on radio] Here's some things you can
do to keep you and your family safe.
If you're in a car, leave it immediately.
Get inside substantial shelter.
It's time to get into some sin
You've been listenin' to gibberish hits
In the interim
Them are done, 'cause here me come
To make you stand up, stand tough
Hands up, damn ya
I was 16,
and I was just cruisin' with my friends,
Evan, Dylan, and his brother, Doug.
-Evan was playing Tech N9ne on the radio.
-Strange music, my crew's thick
-It was a scary vibe.
-Dudes click
And guess who's with two chicks
[Steven] My little brother's like,
"Hey, man, let's go pick up some stuff."
We were just gonna hang out.
Everything was gonna be cool.
Vodka and Mountain Dew
Is the new sh*t
We were taking back roads, 'cause we don't
ever really mess with the main roads.
We know the back roads like,
obviously
[clicks tongue] back of our hand.
Monitor my money
I monetarily astonish ya
[Steven] In high school,
I was probably the lone wolf.
I ended up getting kicked out of school
because I kept gettin' in trouble there.
I had more important things, you know,
like bike riding and smokin' weed.
-Yeah
-k*ller, k*ller, it's the gorilla
-Wow
-And if they
[Steven] BMXing, that was my life.
All the money I hustled up by myself,
and I built the bike.
I don't know if you've been
a teenager trying to get money.
It's pretty hard. [laughs]
-Chick if she get the whip for this
-[phone chimes]
[Steven] My dad texted me and said,
"There's a tornado. Watch out."
And I was like,
"There's no sign of a tornado anywhere.
Uh, I'll see you later."
And I don't know if I'm stupid or not,
but I saw Wizard of Oz
and it didn't look dangerous.
[barking]
Two minutes later,
it gets dark within, like, seconds.
[wind gusting]
Then the sky got pitch black
[heavy rainfall]
to where you couldn't even see
in front of your hand.
Just dark death.
[thunder crashes]
[Steven] It looked like some sh*t
I'd never seen before.
It was crazy.
[wind roaring]
-[siren wailing]
-[reporter 1] Tornado sirens again.
[reporter 2] Tornado sirens once again
going off in Joplin.
[Mac] There goes the tornado sirens.
[siren blaring]
[Mac] We really need
to get the f*ck out of here!
Get the f*ck out of here. Oh my God.
[Kaylee] Watch behind us.
[Mac] Oh my God.
[Mac and Kaylee] Oh my God!
[Mac] Oh God.
[Kaylee] It's right f*ck' behind us.
I was looking in my tiny side-view mirror.
And what I saw
was a dark, massive monster.
There was a grumble,
like Mother Nature was hungry.
[reporter 3] The path of this storm
as it continues to move east.
MSSU, just to the north of Joplin,
the high school graduation
going on up there right now,
uh, that is pretty much
the path of this storm.
[siren continues wailing]
[cheering and applause]
[teacher] Cheyenne Nooney.
[Keegan] After graduation,
there's a big party that's thrown.
[cheering]
[girl] Get ready, guys.
[Keegan] It's the goodbye send-off, right?
Everyone's gonna come together
for the last time.
[teacher] Amber Cantu.
[cheering]
[Keegan] I was gonna DJ, so I was excited,
and I remember
Will was also excited about it.
[teacher] William Norton.
[loud cheering and applause]
Nice thing about me is
I'm at the end of the alphabet.
[teacher] Andrew Keegan Tinney.
[loud cheering]
So by the time I got back to my seat,
the end was near. [chuckles]
-[ceremonial music playing]
-[cheering]
[Keegan] I stayed to take pictures
with Will and some other classmates.
My family all leave and head home.
[siren wailing]
[woman] We come out of graduation,
and there's a tornado.
[Keegan] My dad calls me
and says sirens were goin' off,
and that there were storms coming.
"You need to get your a*s home."
His voice was just He wanted me home.
My dad is the chief
of the ambulance district here.
So Dad taught all of us kids
to always be ready for whatever happens.
And so my last semester of high school,
I got EMT training.
If my dad was worried about this storm,
I knew that I had to get in my truck
and I had to get home.
-[horn blares]
-There was a long line to leave.
I said, "Nah, screw this.
I'm not gonna wait."
I cut through the grass, popped the curb,
got on the road, and headed home sooner.
[presenter on radio] This is
a dangerous weather situation.
Please get in your tornado shelters
right now. Get into your basement.
[Keegan] It starts raining harder.
It only gets progressively worse
driving towards my house.
[radio] We have had confirmed sightings.
Make sure your shelter
has blankets to cover yourself,
a battery-powered radio, flashlights.
Whether it's in a room of your home,
such as your bathroom.
-Bathtub
-[woman] Oh my gosh.
Trained weather spotters
reported a multi-vortex tornado
on the ground in western Joplin.
The cell's moving east
at 20 miles an hour. Very slowly.
[Keegan] Mom!
Getting many reports of damage.
[Keegan] Mom!
You need to take shelter.
the dangers, we know where the storm is
[Cecil] I was working the cash register,
and my manager was like,
"Hey, will you go outside and get those
tables and chairs before they blow away?"
I started, like, hustling, basically,
with the furniture.
The sky was all weird colors.
I could feel this, like,
stillness in the air,
which was a crazy feeling.
And then I looked, like, behind
where the yogurt shop was, to the left,
and then I could just see
this, like, wall.
[wind gusting]
[Cecil] I'll never forget the noise
it made. It was, like, so loud.
[wind droning]
Like a really scary growl noise.
[sniffs]
[rumbling, wind gusting]
I rushed back inside, and I just started,
like, yelling at adults.
Commanding people, pointing my finger,
telling people to go there.
I felt like I was moving
with puppet strings.
I was screaming,
"You listen to me or you will die."
A couple tried to leave.
I was like, "No, stay here."
They were, "If there is a tornado,
this place will crumble,
and, like, my family's not gonna die
inside of a yogurt shop."
And then the lights cut off.
[Heady on TV] Streetlamps are out.
[static crackling]
[thunder crashing]
[reporter on radio] We've had
many people reporting power outages.
That's gonna be the situation
as this tornado rips through
-If you're in Joplin, you'll see this
-[Cecil] Oh, sweet Jesus, keep me safe.
[thunder crashes]
-[Doug] Holy f*ck.
-[Steven] Oh my God!
-This is bad, really bad.
-[Doug] Jesus!
[thunder crashes]
The headlights is the only thing
illuminating the road.
Trees were bending. First thing
that popped into my mind was dinosaurs.
"Something big is walking
through the trees."
Full-grown trees, like, big ones,
they were just flyin' across the street.
One hit the car, and Evan drove
with it on top of the car.
[wind whistling]
[thunder crashing]
The windshield was gone,
and rain was just goin' inside of us.
Evan's like, "What do I do?"
So Evan floored it,
thinkin' it's comin' behind us.
And so we drove farther into a tornado.
The tornado was, like, right there.
Like, pretty much about to touch us.
[Heady] Our tower cam
was massively getting hit.
Our tower cam was located
in central Joplin.
I'm watching from the TV station
ten miles outside of the city.
[Heady on TV] Again, that tornado
would be within the rains.
Very hard to see now
at this point in time.
[Heady] I'm hoping it just
fades out really quickly.
But it just kept
getting stronger and stronger.
I mean, from hitting the ground
to mile wide.
It hit its peak strength
right in the heart of Joplin.
[Heady on TV] You can see debris,
so the winds are very, very strong.
I'll show you on the radar.
When I saw the debris ball on the radar,
I knew it was pickin' up houses.
I knew it was pickin' up trees.
I knew we were in pretty deep sh*t
at that point in time.
It was suckin' in the power lines.
It was catchin' up to us.
We were running for our lives
from the tornado.
-[Kaylee] Where are we goin'?
-[Mac] Don't know!
[Eric] He's head f*cking head this way.
We're outrunnin' that sh*t!
[Mac] Oh my God.
I put the pedal to the floor.
-[wind gusting intensely]
-[horn honking]
[Kaylee] I'm gettin' blasted with wind.
It's practically throwing the truck
off the road.
It was consuming every ounce
of processing power I had
determining what is
the worst-case scenario
and trying to preempt bad outcomes.
My naive self thought I had
some semblance of control.
[Mac on video] Look at the wind going.
Look at the rain sitting right there.
[Eric] That rain's goin' that way.
All the rain stopped falling,
and it just started moving to the side.
We could see the
the rotation of it in front of us.
[Mac on video] Clouds are goin'
the other way.
[Eric] Oh my God.
This is one big rotation right here.
I'm seeing that, and I was like,
"Okay, we're about to fly."
[Mac] Oh my f*cking God. Look at that.
We're in a car right now.
This is really bad.
[Kaylee] Where do we go?
The rain The wind is so bad.
Where do we go? It's right around us.
[Mac] Go to the f*cking
Go to the Alp's! That's the closest thing.
We gotta get inside there.
I saw Kaylee's cell phone on her dash.
I just knew that that would be important.
I grabbed it and put it in my pocket.
[Mac] Whoa, let's get the f*ck in here!
[Eric] Get the f*ck inside!
[Mac] Get in! Get in!
Guys!
Come on! Come on! Come on!
Come on!
-[glass clinking]
-[radio] multi-vortex tornado reported.
And that was about ten minutes ago,
so the storm's
-[wind gusting]
-[horns honking]
[man on radio] in its path of the storm
as it continues to move east.
We ran into a quiet, calm store.
[Mac] Guys, it's gettin'
really bad out here.
Really, really, really, really bad.
We might need to take cover, seriously!
We might need to take cover.
Right off the bat,
people weren't taking us seriously.
You guys have anywhere we can take cover?
-[man] In here?
-[Mac] Please!
[Kaylee] Guys, we've gotta get away
from all this glass!
We knew what was comin'.
This was the real thing headed towards us,
and it was a monster.
And there were people just millin' about.
[Kaylee] Do you have a back room
or something?
-[Mac] This is
-[man] In the in the cooler.
-[Kaylee] Let's go in.
-[Mac] Get in the cooler.
-[Eric] Seriously, this is bad.
-[Mac] In the cooler. In the cooler.
The cooler was just the spot
where we should definitely be.
The door started flying open.
[man shouting]
Eric ran up to shut the door.
[Mac] Eric, get the f*ck over here.
-[Kaylee] Oh my God
-We need to get in.
[man] Get down!
[Mac] Come on, up here.
Over here. Over here!
-[man] Over here, over here!
-[Mac] Here!
-Crowd together, everybody. Guys.
-[Kaylee] God, that's not good.
We ended up huddling
where you fill up the pops.
I knew that we were in a bad spot.
Kaylee was as low
as she could go, squatted down.
And I just kind of hugged her from behind.
Eric was to my right,
and Mac was on my back.
So I had my arm around Eric,
and we kind of formed,
like, a human weight.
You could hear the bottles
clanking up against each other.
The building was vibrating.
This is kind of gettin' scary.
Really scary.
[glass smashing]
[Cecil] It was getting closer,
and it was rumbling louder and louder.
I remember in my mind all the tornado
drills that I had to do in school.
Put your head between your knees.
Put your hands behind your neck.
And I remember thinking,
"I gotta get people safe."
There was a family of about seven people.
I said, "I need the family
to go in the bathroom."
Because it didn't have external walls.
But there was no room for me in there.
I was like, "Where am I gonna go?"
I remember there was a storage room,
but it had two outside walls,
so it exposed us even more.
There was two other teenagers
in that room with me.
[clattering]
Cement started crumbling
underneath my feet.
-[rumbling]
-[Mac] f*ck.
My ears are popping.
-f*ck, f*ck, f*ck, dude.
-[Kaylee] No!
You could feel
the pressure in your ears change.
[high-pitched ringing]
[rumbling]
[Mac] Guys, guys!
[Eric] It's on us!
-[Mac] Guys.
-[Kaylee] Oh my God.
f*ck.
And then the largest pop.
It sounded like [blows twice]
[intense crashing]
And the next thing you know,
everything away.
-[intense whooshing]
-[glass shattering]
[Kaylee screams] Mac!
[intense rumbling]
[crashing]
[Cecil] The wall in front of us
cracked open.
I could see, like, this wall of things
that just was flying in front of my eyes.
I saw a tree go by.
I saw the back end
of a trailer truck flying.
A car pushed up against the side
of the building and held the wall up.
[Kaylee] I saw every part of that building
come apart in slow motion.
The things flying around,
and the walls coming down,
the ceiling torn away.
[Mac] I looked over,
and the walls were gone.
I was just looking outside in the alley.
All I just saw was a wall of wind.
-[video sound breaking up]
-[Kaylee gasping]
[Mac] Ow! It hurts so bad!
Oh my God!
Ow!
-[Kaylee gasping]
-[video sound breaking up]
It felt so violent. Like somebody
had a sandblaster on my back, just on.
[wind gusting violently]
[Mac] It was literally
just things flying in the sky.
There was a big flash of white.
One of the cinder blocks
from what the building was made out of
hit me in the head.
We were just gettin' pelted
by glass and grit.
[debris falling]
The sounds of things goin' tsk!
Like the sound a dart makes
when it hits a board.
When's one of those projectiles
gonna impale me?
Fly through my neck?
Or hit my brother or Mac?
[intense crashing]
[Steven] I thought I was gonna die
from the noise. It was just so loud.
Just roarin'.
[Doug] Riding through this tornado,
debris inside of the car is just flyin'.
-[crashing]
-[shouting]
We're getting hit by rocks.
Glass shards hitting each other,
cutting us.
It is pulling air out.
I'm tellin' them,
"Get your seat belts on."
Like, we're going into this.
There's a possibility we ain't coming out.
[wind roaring, howling]
[Cecil] We were so scared
that we were losing our lives.
[calm music playing]
We just screamed into the air,
"God, you are all-powerful.
God, like, put your light around me."
"Protect us with your light."
[wind howling]
[jumbled, broken up sounds]
[intense, distorted rumbling]
[Kaylee] It just kept building
and building and building.
[rumbling growing louder]
-And then all of a sudden, it stopped.
-[sounds fading]
And I looked up,
and I saw clear blue sky.
We were in the eye.
And I just could not believe my eyes.
Like, "Oh my goodness, there is the sky."
I saw vortexes in the middle of it.
It was incredible.
Tornadoes that have an eye are
are just giant. They're monsters.
[Kaylee] To be stuck
in this moment of calm,
this little tunnel,
totally surrounded by chaos.
[sighs]
That was the first time I had ever
been forced to reckon with,
"I am not ever truly in control."
[Mac] Don't move! Everybody stay down!
[Kaylee] Stay down! Stay down!
When things calmed down in the eye,
a lot of folks thought that it was over,
but we knew
that there was a second half comin'.
[reporter 1 on TV] Continue to take cover.
We can see that tornado on the ground
from our tower cam.
We are continuing to track that.
[reporter 2] This is a dangerous,
dangerous situation at this point in time.
We're gonna continue
to track this storm at this point in time.
[reporter 1] I don't think
it'll hit our station.
[Eric] A tree fell down?
Let's go in.
[Kaylee] Everybody get down!
[woman screams] It's coming!
[Kaylee] It's coming.
-God! God!
-[confused shouting]
-[Mac] Get in.
-[shouting and sobbing]
[wind picking up intensity]
[woman] Jesus, heaven!
[screaming]
[eerie music playing]
[music intensifies]
[reporter 2] Folks, if you can hear us,
if we are still--
[static buzzing]
-[reporter 2] All right, we're off-air.
-[reporter 1] Yeah. We're off-air!
[Heady] This is definitely
a very dangerous situation.
The tower cam just went down,
so it got too much debris
or it took a lightning strike.
[tense music playing]
[Heady] When the tower cam went down,
it was scary
not to be able to tell people
what was goin' on.
Are people safe?
Are people taking shelter?
I was scrambling,
trying to figure out what was goin' on.
[thunder crashes]
[static crackling]
I felt the car slide across the road
and then pick up.
It was tumblin' sideways,
and then it just got flung
and floated off.
I looked at everybody, almost saying
goodbye in a way. That was, like, my look.
It's like I knew I was gonna die.
Dylan was grabbin' around me,
and he was holdin' onto me.
The tornado ripped me out of his arm,
and I got sucked out of the car.
I was flying inside the tornado,
and was in the fetal position, screaming.
Gravity's, like, not a thing in there.
It's just space, pretty much.
My life flashed back through my mind.
There were so many things
that happened in my life.
Like, I remembered everything,
and I was like, "Oh my God."
[dramatic music playing]
I accepted my fate, and
and then I saw the light.
[Cecil] As a teenager,
I thought, "This is the Rapture."
"God's lifting his people up
and taking them away."
"If this is gonna be the end of the world,
I don't wanna stay around
for what's gonna happen."
I, like, let go at one point
to be taken away.
[dramatic vocalizing]
[Cecil] I could feel
my body lift off the ground.
[Kaylee] I can feel
my brother being lifted.
There's no way
I'm goin' home without my brother.
So I let go of the person next to me,
moved my arm up around his neck,
and pulled him under me.
But I then felt wind between Mac and I.
So I knew Mac was being sucked up too.
He was hangin' onto me
with everything he had and was airborne.
[intense, distorted sounds on video]
[Kaylee] Mac!
Talk to me!
Oh my God! What are you
-What are you
-[Mac shouting]
[jumbled, distorted voices]
-I don't know how long I can hang on for.
-[sounds fade]
[Kaylee] That was such
a sinking feeling, to realize
one of us wasn't gonna walk away from it.
I was 100% at peace at that moment.
I was, I I suppose, just ready.
We said I love yous,
and we waited to die.
[wind gusting]
[intense, crashing wind]
[static crackling]
[man 1] I'm in a tornado!
I'm in a tornado!
[thunder crashes]
-[woman 1] Can anybody hear me?
-[woman 2] Go ahead.
[woman 1] Officer down!
[wind howling]
[man 2 on radio]
Confirmed tornado on the ground.
It's moving to the southeast.
[woman 3] Battalion 1 has advised to hold
responses for at least five to ten minutes
until it passes, as far as searching.
[sounds fading]
-[grunting]
-[rustling]
[Kaylee, laughing] Oh my God!
[Mac] Oh my God!
-We're alive!
-[Kaylee] I'm
We're f*cking alive!
[both] We're alive!
-[Mac] We're alive!
-[Kaylee] Woo-hoo!
For a split second,
we were like, "Yes, we're alive!"
And that just faded so fast.
[Mac] What do we do?
What the f*ck do we do right now?
[Kaylee] Well, we wait. We wait.
[Mac] Let's run! I mean, no, no, no, no!
[Kaylee] No, stay down! Stay down!
[wind gusting]
[sounds fade]
[Mac] When we took a look around
everything was gone.
It felt like the end of the world.
[Cecil] I go outside
and see the town exploding.
[thunder crashing]
[eerie music playing]
A mile and a half on both sides,
there was nothing.
All the houses were destroyed.
All the trees were gone.
And I remember just, like, screaming.
I thought the Rapture had happened.
And because I was g*y,
I wasn't taken by God.
[thunder rumbling]
[poignant music playing]
[sighs]
[distant thunder echoing]
[Cecil] I knew that
I needed to find my parents.
But I didn't know
if my parents were still alive.
[sighs]
And then, I just
I just had to get myself, like, ready.
-[phone speed-dials]
-[man 1] Respond emergency.
[sirens wailing]
[man 2] We're gonna need everybody.
There's people dead and trapped.
Call everybody.
[tense music playing]
[woman 1] 2-70, status?
[man 3] Main South is completely gone.
Total destruction here.
[man 4] We've got whole buildings missin',
multiple subjects injured.
[man 5] 10-4. We're trying to get help
as soon as possible.
[thunder rumbling]
[Chad] We took shelter
in the kitchen of the restaurant,
waiting for the tornado to hit.
But that impending doom never came.
I was confused
as to why the restaurant wasn't hit.
I thought maybe
I'd been dramatic and overreacted.
My mom and I went back to our hotel,
which was across the street.
Cell phones were down,
so we weren't able to get ahold of Doug.
I turned on the radio.
[reporter, breaking up] stay in your
Your worst nightmare has come to Joplin.
[Chad] We're hearing about
everything that was going on
a quarter of a mile away
from where we were.
The tornado went through
the heart of Joplin.
It started right there at the state line
and ripped a good chunk of a path
through the city.
We saw a car pull up to the hotel.
And it didn't even look like a car.
It looked like something that was out of
a horror movie, or had been through w*r.
A gentleman got out of the car,
and he clearly wasn't okay.
He was bleeding, and
You could tell he was in shock.
He said, "Joplin is gone."
[man on recording] The houses are gone.
The trees are gone.
Cars are gone. Buildings are gone.
That's when I knew that this was more
than I ever could have imagined.
[man on radio] I would say
Joplin is gonna need lots of help.
[Keegan] When I got into the driveway,
Dad was in the garage with his radio.
[radio] We've got people
screamin' and hollerin'.
We need it just as fast as you can.
There's hundreds of people
out there with injuries.
-[radio bleeps]
-[Keegan] Dad said, "Go get dressed."
So I'm runnin' inside,
I'm throwin' off my cap and gown,
and we all, within a matter of minutes,
we're changed and ready,
and we hop into my dad's work car.
[radio] officer, we can send
We head to where the storm
had just went through Joplin.
[sirens wailing]
[Mac, on recording] Kaylee!
Kaylee, where are you at?
[Kaylee] Hello?
[panting and shuffling sounds]
[Mac] Kaylee, I got you.
Kaylee, oh my f*cking God.
This f*ck' sucks.
[thunder rumbling]
Lightning was striking the ground
all around us.
Close enough that your hairs
would stick up.
Just complete frenzy.
Fried nerves. Where do we go?
[Mac] Guys, where do we go?
Where's the house? Somebody!
[shouting and rustling on video]
[Mac] Oh my God, our families.
-Oh my God, our families.
-[Kaylee sobs]
[Mac] The path of the tornado
was straight towards my mom's house,
Kaylee and Eric's parents' house.
[Mac on video] Oh my God.
[distant thunder rumbling]
[rainfall]
We remembered that we drove there,
and that there was a truck
should be parked in Alp's parking lot.
We took off and looked for the truck.
-[Eric] Guys!
-[Mac] Eric!
Eric, Kaylee, come here!
Her truck was still there,
but it was demolished.
I had kept my purse and things on me,
so I still had the keys.
[engine coughing]
[engine starts]
[Kaylee] We were gonna go find home.
[car alarm blaring]
[Mac] We had four flat tires.
We were driving over telephone poles,
trees,
power lines,
anything we had to,
because we were trying
to get to our families.
[radio bleeps]
[man 1 on radio] I'm not sure
how we're gonna get through.
This is totally impassable.
[man 2] I have at least
two overturned semis on I-44.
Disregard. We got
multiple vehicles overturned.
[unsettling music playing]
[Doug] I wake up.
I'm inside of the car still.
I'm just like, "Is everybody else in here?
Is everybody alive?"
"Guys, you gotta talk to me.
Somebody answer me."
Um, next thing I know, my brother says,
"Yeah, I'm alive. I'm okay."
And then Evan is like,
"Yeah, man. I'm okay too."
But I didn't hear anything from Steven.
I gotta get out of this car.
I gotta find him now.
I'm yelling, "Steven, I gotta find you.
Say my name."
"Steven!"
"Give me a sign. Tell me you're here. Yo!"
[radio chatter]
[thunder crashes]
[high-pitched ringing]
[Steven] My eyes were opening and closing,
like, in and out of consciousness.
I see Doug, Evan, and Dylan's face,
like, come running over.
Like, "Well, why the f*ck are they walkin'
and I'm not?"
I was like, "That's not a good sign."
I tried movin'.
That's when I started feelin' the pain.
I started screamin'.
Man, I f*ck' hurt bad.
[Doug] It was insane.
He was just in pieces.
You got Swear on everything, I could see
his heart beating through his chest.
We were going to get him help
and make sure he was gonna stay alive.
I start seeing lights
comin' up to the top of the hillside.
I'm standin' in front of the car
as it's comin' at me, not slowin' down,
not nothin', just drive right by me.
Then over the top of this hill
comes this Chevy,
and this car was already wrecked.
[brakes squeaking]
[chuckles]
They got out of the car immediately.
[rapid heartbeat]
[car door opens]
I was like, "I'm gonna go to sleep."
Dylan's smacking me in the face.
I was like, "I'm giving up.
I'm gonna die right here."
And then I blacked out.
[heartbeat fades]
[sirens wailing]
[woman on radio] Supervisor's
trying to get triage set up
at 20th and Range Line.
[Keegan] When we arrived at 20th
and Range Line, it looked like a w*r zone.
There were bodies in the road,
buildings gone,
cars flipped over.
Just complete devastation everywhere.
[man 1 on radio] Put a call-out
to all off-duty county deputies
to report in for duty.
[sirens blaring]
[man 2] Can you pick an area over there
and just kind of set up an area?
[Keegan] I went to EMT school
to help people,
and it was just throttle down and start,
you know, doing what we could to help.
I was 18 years old, but I was not scared.
I was not worried. I was there with Dad.
He said, "Hey, you take this area,
I'm gonna take this area,
then we're gonna report back."
Everywhere I looked and turned around,
I just saw more injuries.
[baby crying]
I remember someone comin' up to me
wearin' a a gown from graduation,
and it was a girl, and she said,
"Keegan, where's my family?"
I had To this day,
I don't know who it was.
I knew she knew me
because she knew my name,
and she was wearin' a gown,
a graduation gown.
But her face was all bloody and covered,
and I don't know who it was.
[Cecil] I had been out walking for hours.
I was so, like, shell-shocked.
The sky was the craziest colors.
It almost felt like an ethereal world.
[distant sirens blaring]
And then I see my mom,
and she was alive, and I was so happy.
[uplifting music playing]
[Cecil] It's not the end of the world.
My family wasn't raptured.
They're alive.
My mom and my dad told me
that our home was destroyed completely.
I remember her just, like, hugging me,
putting her arm around me.
Hearing my mom say, like,
"I was at Target when it happened,"
and, like, "I was buying hair dye."
Like, it was so stupid and silly,
but I was like,
"Thank God you dye your hair, Mom."
"I'm so happy you weren't at home,
and I'm so happy you're safe."
[Kaylee] The second
we got away from Main Street,
we got lost.
I mean, we knew that neighborhood
like the back of our hands,
and we had no idea where we were.
There was nothin' to orient us.
[engine revving]
There was a field.
I remember Kaylee
gettin' stuck in the field.
She gave it some gas,
and I remember us sinking a little bit.
Me and Eric said,
"It's fine. We'll get out and push."
We jumped out of the truck.
Me and Eric looked at each other and said,
"Dude, what field
is in the middle of Joplin?"
"What field? Where are we at?
Why are we in a field?"
And then we looked and realized that
we were in the high school practice field.
Like the high school we went to.
We were there.
[emotional music playing]
We couldn't even recognize
that we were where
we went to school at for our childhood.
Um
[sighs]
And that was pretty sobering.
[Will] More than 2,100 students
fill the halls of Joplin High School.
[student speaker] I've recently been
thinking about the future,
waiting for something big to happen.
Today is that something big.
[man 1 on radio] Have you heard anything
about the Joplin High School on 20th?
[reporter 1] Joplin High School,
as we understand it, has been destroyed.
[girl] It's crazy.
And today was my graduation.
Usually, I mean, like, the tornado sirens
go off, but nothing usually happens.
So I thought,
"Ah, well, nothing's gonna happen."
And the one day that I say,
"You know what? Nothing's gonna happen"
[man, breaking up]
Check, one, two, three, four.
Weather Channel, Mike Bettes here.
Amanda, it's Bettes. You hear me?
Joplin is destroyed.
[Amanda] We're talking about severe
weather in the middle of the country.
Now we're seeing confirmation
of tornado touchdowns in Joplin, Missouri.
[reporter 2] This is raw video
coming in live as we speak.
Paul, I've never seen
a scene like this before.
Kind of taking my breath away here.
Oh my goodness.
It is a devastating scene. I Oh.
All I can say is it looks very reminiscent
of what we saw last month in
[gasps]
[voice breaking] Excuse me.
[tearfully] In, uh, Tuscaloosa.
[Amanda] Oh God.
[Mike sniffles]
[Amanda] Mike, are you all right?
You're seeing
some just terrible things, I'm sure.
Yeah, it, uh Uh
I remember seeing that
and thinking, "Oh sh*t."
Someone from the Weather Channel is being
moved and upset by the devastation.
Like, that's real stuff.
It's weird to see it from someone else's
eyes that's not from here.
A powerful tornado
leveled a big chunk of the city.
Almost nothing, we're told,
is left standing.
We wanna tell you, this is very serious,
and these things happen very quickly,
so it's tough to get cameras in there,
but we're working on it.
On the morning of the 23rd, I got a call
from the Fox 5 station in San Diego.
And they asked
if I could do some reporting,
because at the time, none of the national
networks had arrived in Joplin yet.
And I actually remember
thinking to myself,
"Well, if all the other reporters
can do it, so can I."
Good afternoon, meteorologist Chad Crilley
here live in downtown Joplin
in the residential communities
where we did see
a large wedge tornado come through.
And we do have extensive damage here.
[Heady] The next few days,
he sat in the studio with me.
In fact, Chad got to get on-field training
for exactly what we do
here in Tornado Alley.
And I knew at that time, Chad was gonna
turn into a rock star someday.
Thanks, Wolf. Good evening.
We begin tonight here in Joplin.
The record-setting F5 tornado
ripped open a six-mile-long wound here.
After the tornado,
Joplin was on everyone's radar.
[reporter 1] Joplin, Missouri
took a beating from a tornado.
It really is post-apocalyptic looking.
And the bad weather period is expected
to continue into tomorrow.
-[thunder crashes]
-Whoa!
News reporters were coming in
from around the world.
[in German] Some houses
were literally pulverized.
[in Italian] The authorities have declared
a state of emergency.
[Cecil] The media attention was hard.
There was cameras everywhere.
[imitating cameras clicking]
And I remember feeling like
there was, like, a target on my back.
It was like, "Him." Like, "Video him."
[reporter] Can you say
and spell your name?
I'm Cecil Cornish.
C-E-C-I-L, C-O-R-N-I-S-H.
[reporter] How old are you?
Seventeen.
[reporter] In high school?
Yeah.
Yeah.
[Keegan] When everyone
threw their caps up in the air,
I was like, "Wow, finally made it."
Never would have thought
that I'd have to share my graduation day
with one of the most tragic moments
that Joplin's seen.
It was it was pretty hard.
And I still don't know
if my friend, Will Norton
He's been missing.
It's still pretty bad. Yeah. But
Yeah, so
[Keegan] Cell phone service was
super spotty.
And I remember people texting and saying,
"Hey," you know, "You okay?
Where are you at?"
And that's when I realized
that Will wasn't accounted for.
Hey, guys, I just got back from LA
last night for a long weekend of fun.
[reporter] That's Will Norton,
18 years old.
Yes, I'm a senior in high school.
No one believes me, I swear.
[laughing] I'll show you my student ID.
[reporter] Already a star on YouTube,
with more than a million and a half views
of his videos.
Can't make myself go to sleep.
I am just in way too good of a mood
and I don't even know why.
He disappeared Sunday
when the twister hit his SUV.
-[reporter] Can you say your name?
-Yeah, it's Tracey Presslor.
[reporter] And we're talking about
Uh, my nephew, Will Norton.
[reporter] He was coming home
from graduation, correct?
[Tracy] The sirens were going off.
So everybody went different directions
to try to get into shelter.
And he was driving.
My brother was in the passenger seat.
And the tornado basically just
grabbed them and took them into the air.
He reached over and grabbed my nephew
and was holding onto him,
and Will started
quoting Scripture immediately,
and just kept saying
verses and verses,
and the tornado literally
pulled him through the sunroof
while my brother had a hold of him.
[melancholy music playing]
[Keegan] Seeing all
the collective effort of everybody,
I held out hope that at some point,
we're gonna find Will.
People were searching for him day after
day, trying to figure out where he was.
[Tracy] We really kind of think
that he's still out there,
but we're concerned
with the vortex of this tornado
that it really could have taken him
much higher and much further.
I'm really asking people
everywhere from Joplin
towards Springfield, Nevada, wherever,
they need to check their fields,
people need to look in trees.
Not just for my nephew, but
I mean, there's a lot of people missing.
[wind gusting]
[reporter 1] An extremely rare
flesh-invading fungus called zygomycosis
infecting victims
of the tornado in Joplin, Missouri.
Health officials say flying debris
to blame for the rare but serious disease.
[reporter 2] Eight people have
contracted a rare type of fungus,
and three of them have died.
Steven was in a coma,
and he got this flesh-eating fungus
that was k*lling people.
It was eatin' his bone,
it was eatin' the skin, his his muscle.
It was tearing him apart.
[reporter 1] The infection's caused
by exposure to a fungus
found in soil and decaying vegetation.
[Doug] With this being the Ozarks,
that tornado went through so much.
It was almost impossible for it to not
have had something like that come about.
[reporter 1] The fungi are
extremely invasive.
The black, dead tissue has to be removed.
Steven had about a 5% chance of survival.
Like, I was afraid
I was gonna lose my friend
that's now fighting for his life.
[unsettling music playing]
[Steven] In my coma,
I had the craziest dream.
[squelching]
[Steven] I didn't know
if my head was cut off
and it was just still alive
somewhere or somethin',
'cause I couldn't feel my body.
[wind gusting]
[old-fashioned announcer]
A dark reminder of the terrible forces
within the Earth, waiting to be unleashed.
-[wind gusting]
-[faint brass band music playing]
[Steven] It felt like
I was waiting to go somewhere,
but the waiting place was a hell to me.
I was like,
"I don't know what's goin' on."
"This ain't real.
I need to get outta here."
[squelching]
[man] It's really quite rare.
I've never seen a case in over 30 years.
[Steven] My mom and dad, they were talking
to the doctor like I wasn't even there.
[man's voice, faintly] that lets spores
[Steven] But it felt so good
hearing their voices.
[faint, whispering voices]
[Steven] My parents split when I was nine.
We moved out, and that destroyed my dad.
He went back to his old life, drugs,
and then lost his job, lost his house.
I left home when I was about 12,
and I was just at friends' houses,
couch surfing, you know.
I wanted a life
like other normal families' lives.
Stable home, dinners,
and normal things like that.
In my dream, the doctor said, "We can't
give any more resources to your son."
"We have to give up on him."
And then I started freakin' out,
'cause I couldn't talk.
I was like, "I wanna live." You know?
-[monitor beeping rhythmically]
-[heartbeat]
[thunderclap]
[steady beep]
[sounds fade]
[emotional music playing]
[Steven] I woke up,
and it was sunny outside.
I breathed outside air for the first time,
and it took my breath away.
I could tell
it wasn't the dream that I'd been in.
Waking up out of a coma is like your body
being in a coffin for 100 years,
and God's giving you a chance
to be alive again.
It feels brittle. It feels
uh, like a baby, you know?
It, uh it aches really bad.
It it hurts a lot.
My mom and my dad come in,
and they're crying, and they're like
My dad's like, "I told you.
I knew he would make it."
And then I've never seen
Evan cry in my life.
And the first time him and Dylan
walked in, he started crying.
And I was like,
you know, trying to cheer him up.
I was like, "Are you crying?"
And he was like, "You're messed up, bro."
He was like, "You're pretty messed up."
The fungus was just taking over me.
They cut a little piece of me off,
and then it didn't grow back to it,
so they just started
cuttin' everything off of me.
My ribs, part of my lung, my liver.
My right nipple's gone.
And they removed a piece of my heart.
Other than that, though,
it's, yeah, pretty much beach bod.
You know? Mm-hmm.
There was a lot of times
I didn't think I was gonna have my son.
And it's a miracle
that he's made it through this.
I just want to go home and get settled in.
And get back to normal.
My dad did a lot to help me, uh,
through my whole stay, whole four months.
He was there, like, every day.
Love is all you really need.
You don't need nothin' in life
but just family.
And I didn't really ever take advantage
of it until the tornado.
Seeing how much I needed them,
and they were actually there
this time, you know?
And it brought me and my dad
close together.
It's amazing how strong that bond is
when you need it, you know?
[reporter] It's an emotional day
for Steven Weersing,
known as the walking miracle.
[Steven] The press called me Miracle Boy.
I didn't really understand
what a miracle meant, really,
'cause I didn't think I was a miracle.
It takes someone like me
to live through this.
Hah. No, I'm not surprised.
Surprise, m*therf*ckers. [chuckles]
[emotional music playing]
[Keegan] I remember how people would say
that the real world sucks.
And I didn't realize that,
15 minutes after graduation,
the real world would hit us
and our class of 2011.
I mean, it specifically hit us and me,
uh, you know, g*ns blazin'.
[reporter 1] The search
for Will Norton is over.
[reporter 2] His body was
discovered in a pond
near where the tornado
had flipped Will's SUV.
[reporter 3] Oh my gosh.
Part of the graduating class of 2011.
A lot of memories there.
[Keegan] For those that haven't seen it,
Will maintained a YouTube channel.
He has tons of videos up there,
and they embody Will's life every day,
his enthusiasm for living.
I remember Will told me
that he had a full-ride scholarship
to a film school in California,
and I was, like,
so proud of him, so excited.
[Will] Whoosh!
[Cecil] He said he wanted to be
just like Steven Spielberg.
I wasn't close to Will,
but, like,
him telling me about his dreams,
like, created dreams in myself.
I'll show you guys
how many people are here. It's crazy.
[Keegan] I remember he had
a massive Halloween party our senior year.
It was probably one of the highlights
of senior year for everybody.
-[laughter]
-[Keegan] His laugh is over-the-top.
You could just hear it.
I can hear it now in my head.
Bye, guys! [laughs]
[Keegan] Everything that he did
always came from a good place.
Everyone was impacted by the tornado.
Either they lost a loved one,
or a friend, or their homes.
Mmm
Nobody was unscathed.
My parents' house was gone,
but our families were okay.
[vehicle reversing alarm beeping]
[Kaylee] I just want to come up here
and smoke a cigarette where we stood.
This is where we was.
-We all huddled right here.
-[Mac] Right here.
[Kaylee] I feel grateful.
Guilty.
Why we got to stand up and walk away,
and a lot of other people didn't,
especially kids.
We got very lucky.
[Kaylee] We ran out this way,
jumped off, ran down there.
Son of a b*tch.
[Mac] I've heard about PTSD
and how it could affect you,
and I can feel myself just
slightly vibrating, you know what I mean?
That's what happens
when I talk about it any time.
It's crazy.
[poignant music playing]
[Keegan] The summer after the tornado,
everyone in the community
was working hard,
trying to get back to normal.
I remember seeing the school and thinking,
"We were the last class
to go through that school."
"We were the last ones
to graduate from that building."
Those walls and the halls,
all the memories there are
are gone forever.
[man] What you've done,
and the things that you've gone through,
there is nothin' that can happen
on a football field
that we can't overcome
if we stay together.
-Are you with me?
-[team] Yes, sir!
[crowd cheering and screaming]
[music swells]
[chanting] Joplin Eagles!
Joplin Eagles!
Joplin Eagles!
[Keegan] The community was excited
for the first home football game.
Joplin Eagles!
Junge, the football field,
didn't take any damage from the tornado.
Walking into Junge,
I remember that sense of pride
and seeing the stands packed.
Something I had never seen
on a Friday night before.
It was like, "Damn!"
Hell, I wanted to go put pads on
and a helmet and play.
[announcer] The Joplin High School
Football Eagles!
[Keegan] Somethin' really shitty
happened to our community.
[chanting] Let's go, Eagles!
[Keegan] It would have been easy
for a lot of people to go somewhere else.
Joplin is built on a community of miners.
People grabbed their own chainsaws
and figured out a way to get it done.
That says a lot about Joplin.
[cheering and whistling]
[announcer] Touchdown for Joplin Eagles!
[Kaylee] For the rebuild,
it was remarkable
just to see the amount of help
that came in.
[reporter 1] An estimated total
of 300,000 volunteers
from all over the country
lent their time and energy.
[Keegan] In the district, they were able
to get the students back into school
and not miss a day at school.
[reporter 2] Joplin High School
has reopened.
-Welcome, students.
-[reporter 2] At the local mall.
[Cecil] In my senior year,
even though we were different,
and we had, like, different cliques,
there was a togetherness
that was really cool about my community.
Some of life's strongest bonds
are the ones we forge
when everything around us seems broken.
To the people of Joplin
and the class of 2012,
the road has been hard
and the day has been long,
but we have tomorrow,
so we march.
We march together.
Usually, the President
of the United States isn't at graduation.
It's crazy. It meant so much.
My deepest hope for all of you is that as
you begin this new chapter in your life,
you'll bring that spirit of Joplin
to every place you travel,
to everything you do.
You can serve as a reminder
that we're not meant
to walk this road alone.
That we're not expected
to face down adversity by ourselves.
Congratulations. May God bless you.
May God bless the class of 2012.
May God bless
the United States of America.
[teacher] Cecil Cornish.
[loud cheering]
[Obama] I could not be prouder of you,
and I want to shake
as many hands as possible, all right?
[cheering and applause]
Good to see you. I'm so proud of you guys.
-[Cecil] Thank you.
-[girl] Thank you.
[Obama laughing] Good to see you.
[cheering and applause]
[peaceful music playing]
[birdsong]
[Cecil] Whenever I was 17, I was
so concerned about, like, being chosen,
but the most powerful thing
is to, like, choose yourself.
Now that I'm older,
I am an openly g*y man.
I lead a nonprofit support group
for q*eer people
that probably felt
like I did when I was a kid.
Growing up, staying in my hometown,
to me, was the worst thing.
But I live here now,
and I love Joplin.
[tearfully] I love Joplin so so much.
[Steven] Everything I did in my life,
everything I had to go through,
it was probably for a reason.
[child] Daddy!
[Steven] Becomin' a dad
it's the best thing in the world.
It feels so good.
'Cause I just Yeah.
I never thought I'd feel like that.
-[Steven] Ah!
-[mother] Ah!
[Steven] It's like, "Oh, that's what
I've been missing. That's what I needed."
Ah! [babbling]
-[baby laughing]
-Ah!
[Steven] I wanna give 'em
everything I didn't have,
and more.
[laughing]
My kids look at me as like a superstar.
I love all of them.
[emotional music continues]
[Kaylee] After the tornado,
my confidence exploded.
Like "Bring it."
I started a role in my career
that had me going to new places,
gettin' on a plane, driving in big cities,
meeting new people.
Somethin' that I wouldn't have done
unless I had the experience
of the Joplin tornado.
"Bring it on," like
I'm not scared of anything anymore.
Hey!
Hey!
-Good to see you, sis.
-[Kaylee] Nice fire.
-[Eric] Thank you.
-[Kaylee] Good job.
-I'd say Mac helped
-Yeah, but
-But we know he's the same same old Mac!
-[Kaylee] No, he
[Eric] Hey-o!
[Mac] You know,
that experience that we share,
Kaylee and I and her brother
-Yeah!
-[all laughing]
You know that we'll always be close
because of that.
Sounds kind of clich,
but, you know, you really gotta
just cherish the time you get with people.
'Cause, you know, there's people that,
after that day, I never got to see again.
[Steven] Mother Nature is somethin'
you don't wanna mess with.
I will bow down to her.
She's scary.
That's for sure.
[upbeat electronic music playing]
[music fades]
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Twister, The: Caught in the Storm (2025)
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