Hope fades for four missing at Mount Rainier, Park Service says (Reuters)

SEATTLE (Reuters) – Chances are slim of finding four people alive who have been missing since last week on Mount Rainier in Washington state as rescue efforts were suspended on Tuesday due to a snow storm that hit the region, a Park Service official said.

The suspension of the search came a day after officials, taking advantage of a break between winter storms, conducted a major operation to look for the missing people.

An Army Chinook helicopter, a private helicopter and a Washington State Patrol plane with infrared capabilities were used in the latest unsuccessful search, along with seven ground teams, the U.S. National Park Service said in a statement.

But on Tuesday, a winter storm brought more snowfall to Mount Rainier, 50 miles southeast of Seattle, hindering further rescue efforts. Heavy snow blanketed Mount Rainier last week during an unusually strong winter storm that virtually paralyzed nearby Seattle.

The four missing people were in two separate parties. Mark Vucich, 37, of San Diego and Michelle Trojanowski, 30, of Atlanta had been planning to camp at Muir Snowfield at the mountain, the Park Service said. They had said they would exit the park on Sunday, January 15.

The second party consisted of two 52-year-old climbers. Sork Yang of Springfield, Oregon, and Seol Hee Jin of South Korea, were trying to reach the mountain's summit and planned to return on Monday, January 16, the Park Service said.

Patti Wold, a spokeswoman for the Park Service, said on Tuesday that the chances of finding the four people alive were "very minimal, minimum to none."

"We're not searching today," Wold said. "We are scaling back the operation."

The families of the four missing people have been told that the chances of finding them alive were small, she added.

(Reporting by Laura L. Myers: Writing by Alex Dobuzinskis; Editing by Cynthia Johnston)

View the original article here

Katia ramps up power, but seen missing East Coast (Reuters)

MIAMI (Reuters) – Hurricane Katia powered up to a major Category 4 storm on Monday, but was expected to veer away from the U.S. East Coast later this week, avoiding a direct hit on a seaboard already battered by Hurricane Irene.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center warned, however, that U.S. East Coast beaches should still watch out in the coming week for large swells generated by Katia that could cause life-threatening coastal surf and rip currents.

By late Monday evening, Katia's winds had strengthened to 135 miles per hour, making it a Category 4 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson intensity scale as it tracked northwestward on a path over the ocean between Bermuda and the Caribbean, the Miami-based center said.

The storm was moving toward the northwest at about 10 mph and the hurricane center said it was expected to continue in this general direction through Wednesday.

The center said some fluctuations in strength were possible during the next 24 hours, followed by a slow weakening.

NHC hurricane specialist Robbie Berg told Reuters the greatest threat from Katia for the U.S. eastern seaboard was likely to be the large swells and resulting dangerous coastal surf and currents the storm generated on its path.

"Even though these storms may stay offshore, they still can be a deadly threat, especially to people going to the beach," Berg said. "It may be a beautiful nice day out and you may just not know that there are rip currents there that can pull you out to sea," he added.

Forecasters and residents of the U.S. Atlantic seaboard have been keeping an anxious eye on Katia after Hurricane Irene raked up the East Coast from the Carolinas to Maine last weekend. It killed at least 40 people and caused extensive flooding, especially in New Jersey and Vermont.

Katia, the second hurricane of the June-through-November Atlantic season, has kept forecasters guessing for days about its potential threat to the United States.

Berg said the latest five-day forecast predicted the hurricane would swing north and then northeastward from Thursday in between Bermuda and the U.S. mainland, pushed away from the East Coast by a developing low pressure trough.

That would guide the storm around a ridge of high pressure in the central Atlantic known as the Bermuda High.

"The steering flow right now is pushing the storm to the northwest but once it gets closer to the East Coast, it'll start feeling the effects of that trough a little bit more, and it's going to make that sharp turn around the Bermuda High and head out northeastward over the open Atlantic," Berg said.

ANOTHER TROPICAL WAVE MOVING WESTWARD

At 10 p.m. (0200 GMT Tuesday), Katia's center was located about 450 miles south of Bermuda, the mid-Atlantic British overseas territory that despite its small size is a global reinsurance hub.

Berg said there was still a one in 10 chance parts of the East Coast could experience tropical storm-force winds when Katia passed well offshore later this week, especially jutting coastal areas like North Carolina's Outer Banks and Cape Cod in Massachusetts. Bermuda could also experience such winds.

Elsewhere, Tropical Storm Lee tested New Orleans' flood defenses over the weekend, and on Monday its weakened remnants threatened to dump heavy rain on states from Texas to Florida.

The September 10 peak of the annual Atlantic hurricane season is approaching, and hurricane spotters were already watching another tropical wave, located southwest of the Cape Verde Islands off Africa.

That was moving westward and the NHC gave it a "high" chance of becoming a tropical cyclone in the next 48 hours.

Forecasters have predicted a very active 2011 Atlantic season with between eight and 10 hurricanes, above the long-term June to November average of six to seven hurricanes.

(Editing by Todd Eastham)

View the original article here

Japan storm death toll rises to 25, more missing (Reuters)

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan's death toll from tropical depression Talas, earlier downgraded from a tropical storm, has risen to 25 with 52 missing, the government said Monday, as torrential rain pounded the west of the country at the weekend, triggering mudslides and bursting river banks.

Talas, which cut through Japan's main island Saturday and Sunday, was off the country's western coast as of 8:00 p.m. EDT, heading northeast, the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) said.

There were no reports of major disruption to factory operations and Tokyo Electric Power Co said its tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, located in eastern Japan, has not been affected by the storm.

Talas has mostly moved at about 6 mph, roughly the speed of a bicycle, and its slow progress caused heavy and prolonged rainfall over Japan, the agency said.

"We'll do our utmost in terms of search and rescue operations," Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda told reporters when asked about the disaster.

As Talas moves on, heavy rain is expected in the north of the country, though JMA warned residents of the west to remain on alert for landslides.

(Reporting by Kiyoshi Takenaka; Editing by Joseph Radford)

View the original article here

3 dead, 1 missing in Pittsburgh flash flooding (AP)

PITTSBURGH – Authorities say streets in Pittsburgh remained closed while about 40 rescue workers with dogs continuing searching for a woman who disappeared during flash flooding Friday and is presumed dead.

Raymond DeMichiei (DEE'-mich-eye), deputy director of the Pittsburgh Emergency Management agency, says the search for the missing woman was continuing Saturday morning.

Three people were killed in the flooding Friday. The medical examiner identified them Saturday as 45-year-old Kimberly Griffith of Plum, 12-year-old Brenna Griffith and 8-year-old Mikaela Griffith.

Authorities say they were unable to escape their vehicle, which was submerged and pinned to a tree.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

Flash floods submerged more than a dozen vehicles in Pittsburgh, killing three people, leaving another missing and presumed dead, and forcing others to swim to safety or scramble onto the roofs of their cars.

A pair of storms pounded the city Friday, overwhelming the drainage system and causing manhole covers to pop off the road, officials said. Water rose to 9 feet in some places along Washington Boulevard, a main road that runs near the Allegheny River.

Rescue crews used inflatable boats to reach marooned drivers, though some swam to safety on their own. Rhodearland "Bob" Bailey of Penn Hills, who is about 80, was rescued from the roof of his car.

"I can swim a little bit and was looking at a tree branch," Bailey told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. "I heard one woman yelling for help, but the water was coming down so fast, I couldn't see. ... I've never seen nothing like this in my life. Lord have mercy."

The area received 2.1 inches of rain in an hour during the evening rush, said Rihaan Gangat, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service. But an earlier storm meant the region was drenched by 3 to 4 inches of rain overall on Friday.

The three victims, a woman and two children whose names were not released, were unable to escape their vehicle, which was completely submerged and pinned to a tree, Pittsburgh public safety director Michael Huss said at a news conference.

Rescuers floated over the car without knowing it was below.

"The bottom of the boat didn't even scrape against the top of the car," said Raymond DeMichiei, deputy director of the city Office of Emergency Management.

A fourth person, a 70-year-old woman, was missing and presumed dead, police Chief Nate Harper said.

Harper said 18 vehicles were stranded in the high water and 11 people were rescued. One of the rescued women required hospital treatment.

People were clinging to trees, poles and car roofs, KDKA-TV reported. One woman scrambled tried to scramble to the roof of her car but the water was moving so fast, she was dragged along in it, then grabbed on to a truck.

"You started to see — even a red dump truck floating," Marion Marty of Sarver told the television station. "I mean, I never saw anything like it before in my life!"

The water had receded by Friday evening, but the mud-caked road will remain closed through Saturday as emergency crews work to clear all the stranded cars.

"Manhole covers started popping up and it looked like the road exploded and the waters came up really fast," Tara Howes, 34, of Gibsonia told the Tribune-Review. "I saw people swimming on the sides of the road. It was pretty scary."

The flash floods hit an area that experienced serious flooding last month. Rushing water from a July 18 storm stranded motorists and caused a section of road to buckle.

Claudia Gallagher, who was driving at the height of the rainfall Friday, said she tried to get off the road as the water rose.

"We tried to drive up onto the curb, but the water had other ideas," Gallagher, 55, of West Mifflin, told the Post-Gazette.

Her car began to float, and she opened her window and climbed onto the roof. Many other drivers nearby were sitting atop their cars, too, she said.

Earlier Friday, another storm caused power outages that led the University of Pittsburgh to close for the day. Parts of Carlow and Carnegie Mellon universities also lost electricity.

Flights at Pittsburgh International Airport were grounded because of lightning just after 3 p.m., spokeswoman JoAnn Jenny said.

Two hospitals operated on emergency power after rains flooded a substation in the city's Oakland neighborhood.

View the original article here

7 killed, 3 missing as bad weather hits Vietnam (AP)

HANOI, Vietnam – Officials and state media say flash floods and whirlwinds have killed seven people, left three others missing and injured 60 in northern Vietnam.

Disaster official Tran Van Nham of Yen Bai province said Friday that authorities have recovered the body of a 20-year-old man and are searching for three people who were swept away by flash flooding while walking across a stream Thursday.

In the northern port city of Hai Phong, a woman was killed Thursday by a falling tree, another person died when a house collapsed and four others were killed when they were struck by lightning, according to a statement from the Hai Phong Department for Flood and Storm Control.

It said the whirlwinds injured 60 people, and high winds destroyed or damaged more than 900 homes.

View the original article here

Storm kills 10 in India, 33 fishing boats missing (AFP)

KOLKATA (AFP) – Ten people died and 33 fishing boats went missing on Friday during monsoon storms in eastern India which flattened hundreds of homes and flooded the city of Kolkata, officials said.

Police said the deaths occurred in rain-related accidents across West Bengal, where 33 fishing trawlers and about 500 crew were also reported missing by a local fishing association.

Weather department official Gokul Chandra Debnath said the state capital Kolkata, where the downpour overwhelmed the inadequate and poorly maintained drainage system, recorded 10 centimetres (four inches) of rain on Friday.

"The city collapsed because we were not prepared for such a calamity at the beginning of the monsoon," Kolkata mayor Sovan Chatterjee said, adding an emergency response centre had been set up to help those stranded.

Senior police official Surojit Kar Purakayastha said at least 10 people were killed in the storms and heavy rains across the state.

Among those killed were four members of a family who died when a landslide flattened their home in mountainous Kurseong region and four others who were swept away after their boat sank in Kolkata's Hoogly river, he said.

Local fishermen's welfare association president Bijon Maity told AFP by telephone that 33 trawlers in the Bay of Bengal had gone missing during the afternoon.

"Each trawler has at least 16 fishermen," he said, meaning at least 528 men were unaccounted for.

During storms in West Bengal, many captains find themselves unable to return to port and take refuge with their boats and crews along the coast.

"We have urged the (state) chief minister Mamata Banerjee to take necessary steps to trace the missing trawlers," Maity said.

India has forecast a "normal" monsoon this year that could boost food production and ease high inflation.

The strength of the annual June-September downpour is vital to hundreds of millions of farmers and to economic growth in Asia's third-largest economy which gets 80 percent of its annual rainfall during the monsoon season.

View the original article here

China floods death toll hits 94, with 78 missing (AP)

BEIJING – China's flood control office says the death toll from heavy rains lashing central and southern China has risen to at least 94, with 78 people missing.

The State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters said on its website Sunday that torrential rains over the last week had triggered floods and landslides in 13 provinces, impacting 8.48 million people and destroying 1.15 million acres (465,000 hectares) of crops,

Water Resources Minister Chen Lei was quoted as saying the scope and intensity of the rains had caused grave casualties and damage to property.

View the original article here

More than 170 dead and missing in China floods (AFP)

BEIJING (AFP) – Flooding caused by torrential downpours in central and southern China has killed 94 people and left 78 others missing, the government said Sunday, warning of further heavy downpours ahead.

Flooding on the southern reaches of the Yangtze river and in southwest China's Guangxi region in recent days has affected 13 provinces or regions and destroyed 465,000 hectares (1.5 million acres) of cropland, it said.

The figures were announced by the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters.

Provinces such as Hubei, Anhui and Hunan along the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze river -- China's longest -- had recently been suffering a severe drought.

China is hit by heavy summer rainfalls every year. In 2010, torrential downpours across large swathes of the country triggered the nation's worst floods in a decade, leaving more than 4,300 people dead or missing.

One devastating mudslide in the northwestern province of Gansu killed 1,500 people in August.

The flood control and drought relief headquarters said last week the recent downpours had helped ease the Yangtze drought but that many areas were still bone-dry and suffering from acute shortages of water for crops and drinking.

The China Meteorological Administration said Sunday further heavy rainstorms were expected along the Yangtze over the next few days.

View the original article here

Joplin tornado chaos leaves hundreds still missing (Reuters)

JOPLIN, Mo (Reuters) – On the wall of the Red Cross shelter in Joplin was taped a poster with a picture of Emma Marie Hamp-Haines, on which someone had scrawled "FOUND."

Hamp-Haines was reunited with her daughter at the center on Wednesday, three days after a huge tornado carved a path of destruction through the city of 50,000 people known as a waystation on historic "Route 66."

"That made it worth it, to see a family brought together," said Amie Houston, a Missouri State University student, who watched the reunion.

The meeting of mother and daughter was a welcome happy ending in a town where too many other stories have ended in shock and tears.

By Thursday, nearly 100 hours after the deadliest tornado in the United States in 64 years, officials were still trying to find 232 people unaccounted for. State officials criticized for problems with information made available to the public swept in new resources Thursday.

"We will keep a relentless focus on the search, rescue and identification of those 232 people, and we will not rest until everyone has been accounted for, and that number is zero," Governor Jay Nixon said.

Getting accurate information out of the six-mile-long scar left by Sunday's tornado has been a struggle. Cell phone service was spotty, landlines dropped and electric power remained cut for thousands across the city.

Local radio filled with callers hunting for friends and family. A Safe and Well list maintained by the Red Cross had more than 1,800 names registered and more than 79,000 searches by Thursday morning, spokesman Jim Rettew said.

Searchers hung five posters, including that of Hamp-Haines, on a glass case behind the Red Cross workers.

"One of the first questions we're asking is 'Have you notified your family? Do they know you're safe?'" Rettew said.

MISSING NUMBER PROBLEMS

Governor Nixon said Thursday the number of missing had fallen as stories like Hamp-Haines's came to light. He acknowledged the frustration and confusion over initial estimates of a staggering 1,500 missing reported for two days following the tornado.

As briefings continued for the media, the number of missing did not decline. Then on Wednesday, officials abruptly stopped giving out a figure at all.

State officials directed 60 investigators starting on Wednesday to work around the clock to deliver Thursday's more accurate number, Nixon said.

"We have absolutely no reason to hide anything from anybody," Nixon said.

Debbie Cummins, great-grandmother of 16-month-old Skyular Logdson, who was finally identified in a morgue on Wednesday, said she and others have tried for two days to verify with coronors' representatives that he has been located, as relatives of the boy's father have said.

"I want to know when there's going to be that next press conference because I want to ask 'where are our loved ones?'" Cummins said on Thursday. "I want to know this and not just for myself and our family. We can't get any answers."

Some of the remains recovered were in very poor condition, Nixon told reporters. Morgue workers, including a federal team, were working to ensure there were no incorrect identifications, he said.

"I don't know what you say to someone who was sitting at home eating dinner and heard the sirens and haven't seen their loved ones since," Nixon said.

The official death toll from the tornado had risen by one to 126 on Thursday, with the addition of Skyular. More than 900 were injured, according to government officials in Joplin. It was the eighth deadliest tornado in U.S. history.

Houston, the Red Cross shelter worker, was one of the lucky ones. She spent hours after the storm making phone calls and slowly locating her friends from school. Some of them managed a reunion at the shelter.

There wasn't a lot of talking," Houston said. "We didn't even need to say anything. It was the fact that we were all together."

(Editing by Greg McCune and Jerry Norton)

View the original article here

Search for tornado's missing finds few amid debris (AP)

By NOMAAN MERCHANT, JIM SALTER and ALAN SCHER ZAGIER, Associated Press Nomaan Merchant, Jim Salter And Alan Scher Zagier, Associated Press – Thu May 26, 10:49 pm ET

JOPLIN, Mo. – Mike Hare has scoured the ravaged neighborhood where his 16-year-old son Lantz was seen last. He's called hospitals from Dallas to Kansas City and taken dozens of calls offering advice, prayers and hopeful tips.

None of the calls came from Lantz. None offered any hope he might still be alive.

Hare has been looking for his son since Sunday, when much of the southwest Missouri city of Joplin was leveled by the deadliest single tornado since the National Weather Service started keeping records.

"We know he's hurt somewhere," Hare said Wednesday, his voice breaking. "We just can't sit and keep calling. You've got to be moving."

Hare is among an increasingly desperate group of people in Joplin pleading for help in tracking down one of the dwindling number of people still missing in the wake of Sunday's storm. They're scrawling signs in wreckage, calling in by the hundreds to local radio stations and posting on the Internet. They are inspiring city officials to continue search and rescue efforts: there is no talk yet of recovery.

On Thursday, the state said 232 people are still considered "unaccounted for" in Joplin, and that some of those are among the 126 people killed by the storm. Others are believed to be alive, but have left the area or have been unable to reunite with family and friends since the storm.

"Our goal is to get that number to zero," said Andrea Spillars, deputy director of the Missouri Department of Public Safety. "We will dedicate as much state resources as needed around the clock to ensure those family who have loved ones that they cannot find are connected."

The state released a list of names, and urged those who are still alive to check in with authorities.

"I am hopeful," Joplin Fire Chief Mitch Randles said Wednesday. "We've had stories from earthquakes and tsunamis and other disasters of people being found two or three weeks later, and we are hopeful we'll have a story like that to tell."

Randles and others leading the search effort say it's impossible to know exactly how many people are truly missing, since many may have simply left the area without getting in touch with their families. They believe most will be OK.

Amid that confusion, away from formal grid searches in the debris fields, children are looking for their parents and friends are searching for neighbors in any way they can.

With erratic cell phone service throughout Joplin and travel hindered by damaged cars and blocked streets, many residents have turned to local radio stations as a hub of information, sifting through around-the-clock reports of missing family members.

The Zimmer Radio Group, which operates seven radio stations in Joplin, abandoned its various music formats for 24-hour tornado coverage starting late Sunday afternoon. Newscaster Chad Elliot, whose home was destroyed, slept in his office when he wasn't on the air. His dog Rusty barked loudly behind a closed door.

"I thought we were going to do a normal severe weather broadcast," he said. "Obviously, that's not the case."

Calls flowed in — hundreds of them — from people looking for displaced loved ones, or calling in to say they were OK. By Wednesday, reports of missing friends and relatives were decreasing, replaced by updates of successful, tearful reunions.

"Folks wondering about Larry Allen, who was living near the Stained Glass Theater, he is fine," an announcer said Wednesday afternoon. "He's staying with friends."

Another listener reported, "I want everyone to know that Alice DuBois, 94 years old, is alive and well. We hadn't heard from her until yesterday afternoon. We thank everyone for their thoughts and prayers."

Pleas were rampant on social networks.

"This little boy was taken to Memorial Hall," one poster wrote next to a picture posted on KRGZ-FM's Facebook page. "His name is David and all he know's is that his mother's name is Crystal and his brother is Zachary. He was airlifted to Tulsa. Please help find his mom."

Other cries for help were low-tech: A tornado-battered pickup truck was spray-painted with the message, "Looking 4 Zachary Williams Age 12," along with a phone number.

At the Red Cross shelter at Missouri Southern State University, a steady stream of people visited a table where Bill Benson took down the names of people for a "safe and well" database. Some people entered their names; others hoped to find the name of their loved ones in the database.

Benson has seen parents looking for missing children, saying "we had one where a 17-month-old infant was lost." He contacted police and had not heard if the child was found. But more people have come to Benson searching for seniors — more than 100 were listed as missing Wednesday.

At Freeman Hospital, Karen Mitchell waited Wednesday hoping for word on her missing son, Robert Bateson, or her grandson, Abe Khoury. Khoury was found and taken to Freeman, where he was in critical condition. But Mitchell and her family continued to search for Bateson.

When she arrived in Joplin on Tuesday, Mitchell walked through the wreckage of her son's apartment building. She recognized his mattress sitting in a pile. Her family continued to post Bateson's information online. She prayed for a miracle.

"I am waiting on God to tell me where he's at," she said. "God is going to take him to me."

Kathy Watson, a marketing team member and front desk volunteer at Freeman, said the hospital was deluged with calls and visits from searchers, sometimes in vain.

"You want to be able to say, `Not only do we have your loved one, but they're fine,' but you can't say that," Watson said.

The evening of the tornado, Lantz Hare was driving with a friend who said the two tried to take cover in the parking lot of a grocery store. The tornado shattered the windows and crumpled the car, and Mike Hare found Lantz's backpack in the wreckage.

He said he would keep searching until he found his son, dead or alive.

"If you look at the ground, life will pass you by," he said. "I won't let life pass me by."

View the original article here

Some of Joplin's missing turn up safe, alive (AP)

By NOMAAN MERCHANT and JIM SALTER, Associated Press Nomaan Merchant And Jim Salter, Associated Press – Fri May 27, 2:03 am ET

JOPLIN, Mo. – As emergency workers in Joplin searched Thursday for more than 230 people listed as missing after a tornado tore through the city, one was sitting on a wooden chair outside the wreckage of her home, cuddling her cat.

Sally Adams, 75, said neighbors rescued her Sunday after the storm destroyed her house and took her to a friend's home. When The Associated Press told her she was on the missing list, Adams laughed and said "Get me off of there!"

Missouri officials had said they believed many of the missing were alive and safe but simply hadn't been in touch with friends and family, in part because cell phone service has been spotty. The AP found that was the case with at least a dozen of the 232 still unaccounted for Thursday. They included two survivors staying at a hotel, six that a relative said were staying with friends and one that a former employee said had been moved from his nursing home.

Stephen Whitehead, of the Red Cross' Safe and Well registry, which keeps track of the accounted-for, said that since the missing list came out earlier Thursday, he has learned that at least nine are people who are dead. Whitehead said he did not know whether those nine were among the known fatalities.

Adams said she lost her cell phone in the storm and had no way of contacting her family to let them know she was OK. She was placed on the missing list after relatives called a hot line and posted Facebook messages saying she was missing.

Her son, Bill Adams, said he told authorities his mother was alive after he learned she was safe, yet she remained on their unaccounted-for list Thursday afternoon.

Mike O'Connell, spokesman for the Missouri Department of Public Safety, said he wouldn't call Adams' listing a mistake and finding her is "a good thing." He urged other survivors to check the list and call if they see their names.

The AP found Mike and Betty Salzer at a hotel being used by visiting journalists.

"Well, for Heaven's sakes," Betty Salzer, 74, said when the AP showed her the list.

The couple have been staying at the hotel since their home was destroyed Sunday. Betty Salzer said their names might have come from a Facebook message her daughter posted before they reached her Monday morning.

Not all of the stories of the missing will end so well.

Joplin City Manager Mark Rohr announced Thursday that the death toll had risen to 126.

Some of their families waited Thursday for their remains to be released. One victim's funeral was scheduled for Friday morning in Galena, Kan., and other services were scheduled for the weekend.

But some of the bodies have yet to be identified. Andrea Spillars, deputy director and general counsel of the Missouri Department of Public Safety, said officials know some of the people unaccounted for are dead, but she wouldn't say how many or when the names of the deceased would be released.

Chris Haddock, 23, said his father was one of the deceased on the missing list. A commercial truck driver found 62-year-old Paul Haddock's body in his pickup truck behind a flattened Walmart.

"They found his wallet and his cell phone in his pocket," Chris Haddock said. "That's how they know it's him."

In another example of potential overlap, 12 residents of the Greenbriar nursing home are on the missing list. But nursing home administrators reported earlier that 11 people died in the tornado; only one was known missing.

One of the 12 is Dorothy Hartman, an Alzheimer's patient. Pamela McBroom, 49, who lives near the nursing home, said one of her daughters used to work there, developed a soft spot for Hartman and introduced them. Hartman was frail "but very positive and full of life," she said.

McBroom said she and her 16-year-old daughter were hiding in a closet when the tornado tore their walls and roof away. Her walls gone, McBroom could see the mayhem at Greenbriar.

"I could see people flying out of the nursing home by my house," McBroom said. "I could hear them screaming. Just screaming. It was horrible."

Nursing home officials haven't said whether Hartman was one of the 11 killed.

Identification of the deceased has been slow because officials have taken extra precautions since a woman misidentified one victim as her son in the chaotic hours after the tornado hit, Newton County coroner Mark Bridges said.

"That's the reason why we didn't release anybody else until we at least had dental records," Bridges said.

A federal forensics team of 50 to 75 disaster mortuary specialists has been at work in six refrigerated trucks, collecting DNA samples for testing, taking fingerprints and looking for tattoos, body piercings, moles and other distinctive marks. Bridges expected as many as 19 bodies would be released Thursday.

He said he's been explaining the reason for the delays to grieving families "all day long."

"It breaks my heart," he said.

____

Associated Press writer Alan Scher Zagier contributed to this report.

View the original article here

Frustration grows over missing US tornado victims (AFP)

JOPLIN, Missouri (AFP) – Fear has given way to frustration in this shattered American town as residents await official word on more than 200 loved ones missing since a record tornado killed 125 people.

Officials said Thursday that 232 people were still missing from Sunday's disaster in Joplin, but some of them may be among the unidentified remains being stored in a hastily constructed mass morgue.

Authorities have sought to calm anxious family members while refusing to allow them to visit the morgue to try to identify loved ones, relying instead on a lengthy identification process involving DNA testing and fingerprinting.

"The 232, we can't presume that all of those are deceased," Andrea Spiller, Missouri's deputy director of public safety, told reporters on Thursday.

Some may simply have failed to contact anxious friends and family. There may also still be people trapped in the rubble who have not been officially reported missing, Spiller cautioned.

Asked why families were not being allowed into the morgue to visually identify their loved ones, she replied: "It is not 100 percent accurate, and 100 percent accurate is our goal."

Joplin resident Tammy Niederhelman recounted the great frustration for families coming up against state and city authorities.

She told CNN she wanted closure after the horrific week but was not allowed to see bodies at the morgue as she frantically sought to confirm the death of her 12-year-old son, Zachary.

"It just feels as though the officials that orchestrated this whole deal, they really care less. It seems to me that they want to get on to cleanup and maybe start building or whatever," she said.

Flags were to be flown at half-mast on Friday in honor of the victims of the tornado -- the deadliest to strike America in six decades -- which followed a wave of tornadoes that killed hundreds in the US south last month.

The monster funnel cloud tore apart everything it touched along a path four miles (six kilometers) long and three quarters of a mile (over a kilometer) wide in this city of 50,000.

Crews continue to search through the tangled piles of debris in hope of finding survivors, but hopes were fading five days after the storm.

Anguished families have kept up a desperate hunt for their missing loved ones, but poor and patchy communications plus the complete devastation of some areas have hampered the search.

Officials said they hoped that by publishing the list of 232 names they could locate the missing and ease the frayed nerves of their families.

"Our goal is to get that number to zero," Spillers said."

The heartbreaking pleas for help and information have been replayed constantly on the local radio and on social networking sites.

But for some the long vigil has already ended in sorrow.

Baby Skyular Logsdon was ripped from his mother's arms by the powerful winds, and his desperate family took to the social networking site Facebook for help to find the 16-month-old.

After several false leads and three days of waning hopes, his body was found in a morgue late Wednesday.

"We all love you so much and you will be missed by everyone," his aunt posted on the Facebook page that has been inundated with outpourings of support and condolences.

Still missing is Will Norton, the 18-year-old who was sucked out of his father's Hummer as they were driving home from his high school graduation.

Teams of volunteers joined the search Thursday in what his aunt Tracey wrote was a day "mixed with nervousness and deep hope."

In a further sign of tragedy, some whole families were listed as missing, along with at least 15 people from area nursing homes.

There was the Merritt family, ages two, five, eight, 26, and 28, and the Reyes family, with parents Maria and Fredy and their two girls, aged 3 and 4.

More than 8,000 structures in the midwestern town were damaged or destroyed when the twister packing winds over 200 miles (320 kilometers) an hour came roaring through with just a 24-minute warning.

Missouri Governor Jay Nixon meanwhile ordered the state's national guard to remove the wasteland of debris left by the tornado, a mission he described as an "enormous task" but crucial for the city's recovery.

The city has meanwhile sent a request to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for assistance in removing the rubble.

Nixon has announced plans for a community memorial service Sunday, the same day that US President Barack Obama is set to visit the city.

View the original article here

Search for tornado's missing finds few amid debris (AP)

By NOMAAN MERCHANT, JIM SALTER and ALAN SCHER ZAGIER, Associated Press Nomaan Merchant, Jim Salter And Alan Scher Zagier, Associated Press – 2 hrs 6 mins ago

JOPLIN, Mo. – Mike Hare has scoured the ravaged neighborhood where his 16-year-old son Lantz was seen last. He's called hospitals from Dallas to Kansas City and taken dozens of calls offering advice, prayers and hopeful tips.

None of the calls came from Lantz. None offered any hope he might still be alive.

Hare has been looking for his son since Sunday, when much of the southwest Missouri city of Joplin was leveled by a tornado that now ranks as the nation's single deadliest tornado since the National Weather Service started keeping records.

"We know he's hurt somewhere," Hare said Wednesday, his voice breaking. "We just can't sit and keep calling. You've got to be moving."

Hare is among an increasingly desperate group of people in Joplin pleading for help in tracking down one of the dwindling number of people still missing in the wake of Sunday's storm. They're scrawling signs in wreckage, calling in by the hundreds to local radio stations and posting on the Internet. They are inspiring city officials to continue search and rescue efforts, yet there is no talk yet of recovery.

Officials planned to release a list Thursday morning of people still considered missing.

"I am hopeful," Joplin Fire Chief Mitch Randles said. "We've had stories from earthquakes and tsunamis and other disasters of people being found two or three weeks later, and we are hopeful we'll have a story like that to tell."

Randles and others leading the search effort say it's impossible to know exactly how many people are truly missing, since many may have simply left the area without getting in touch with their families. They believe most will be OK.

Amid that confusion, away from formal grid searches in the debris fields, children are looking for their parents and friends are searching for neighbors in any way they can.

With erratic cell phone service throughout Joplin and travel hindered by damaged cars and blocked streets, many residents have turned to local radio stations as a hub of information, sifting through around-the-clock reports of missing family members.

The Zimmer Radio Group, which operates seven radio stations in Joplin, abandoned its various music formats for 24-hour tornado coverage starting late Sunday afternoon. Newscaster Chad Elliot, whose home was destroyed, slept in his office when he wasn't on the air. His dog Rusty barked loudly behind a closed door.

"I thought we were going to do a normal severe weather broadcast," he said. "Obviously, that's not the case."

Calls flowed in — hundreds of them — from people looking for displaced loved ones, or calling in to say they were OK. By Wednesday, reports of missing friends and relatives were decreasing, replaced by updates of successful, tearful reunions.

"Folks wondering about Larry Allen, who was living near the Stained Glass Theater, he is fine," an announcer said Wednesday afternoon. "He's staying with friends."

Another listener reported, "I want everyone to know that Alice DuBois, 94 years old, is alive and well. We hadn't heard from her until yesterday afternoon. We thank everyone for their thoughts and prayers."

Pleas were rampant on social networks.

"This little boy was taken to Memorial Hall," one poster wrote next to a picture posted on KRGZ-FM's Facebook page. "His name is David and all he know's is that his mother's name is Crystal and his brother is Zachary. He was airlifted to Tulsa. Please help find his mom."

Other cries for help were low-tech: A tornado-battered pickup truck was spray-painted with the message, "Looking 4 Zachary Williams Age 12," along with a phone number.

At the Red Cross shelter at Missouri Southern State University, a steady stream of people visited a table where Bill Benson took down the names of people for a "safe and well" database. Some people entered their names; others hoped to find the name of their loved ones in the database.

Benson has seen parents looking for missing children, saying "we had one where a 17-month-old infant was lost." He contacted police and had not heard if the child was found. But more people have come to Benson searching for seniors — more than 100 were listed as missing Wednesday.

At Freeman Hospital, Karen Mitchell waited Wednesday hoping for word on her missing son, Robert Bateson, or her grandson, Abe Khoury. Khoury was found and taken to Freeman, where he was in critical condition. But Mitchell and her family continued to search for Bateson.

When she arrived in Joplin on Tuesday, Mitchell walked through the wreckage of her son's apartment building. She recognized his mattress sitting in a pile. Her family continued to post Bateson's information online. She prayed for a miracle.

"I am waiting on God to tell me where he's at," she said. "God is going to take him to me."

Kathy Watson, a marketing team member and front desk volunteer at Freeman, said the hospital was deluged with calls and visits from searchers, sometimes in vain.

"You want to be able to say, `Not only do we have your loved one, but they're fine,' but you can't say that," Watson said.

The evening of the tornado, Lantz Hare was driving with a friend who said the two tried to take cover in the parking lot of a grocery store. The tornado shattered the windows and crumpled the car, and Mike Hare found Lantz's backpack in the wreckage.

He said he would keep searching until he found his son, dead or alive.

"If you look at the ground, life will pass you by," he said. "I won't let life pass me by."

View the original article here

Search for missing tornado victims enters fourth day (AFP)

JOPLIN, Missouri (AFP) – Rescuers and anguished families were still searching for hundreds of missing people on Thursday, four days after a tornado battered this US town, killing at least 125 people.

So far painstaking searches through the devastated homes of Joplin rescuers found no one in the rubble on Wednesday -- dead or alive.

"We're disappointed, but we're also relieved that we didn't find people in there," fire chief Mitch Randles said.

As of Wednesday, nearly 1,500 people were still reported missing. Officials expressed hope that many had simply failed to check in with friends or family while warning that the death toll was likely to rise.

In what is one of the worst tornado seasons on record after a series of twisters killed hundreds in southern US states last month, Sunday's twister in Joplin is now the worst single tornado to strike America in six decades.

The massive twister tore apart everything it touched along a path four miles (six kilometers) long and three quarters of a mile (over a kilometer) wide of this city of 50,000.

"It is a devastating scene," said Missouri public safety communications chief Mike O'Connell.

"I have seen a lot of tornado damage in the past, but never such a wide path, such a large path."

Heartbreaking stories were being replayed hourly on the local radio and on social networking sites as people searched for their loved ones, including panicked parents separated from their children.

The family of 16-month-old Skyular Logsdon launched an anxious search using Facebook for the baby boy ripped from his mother's arms by the powerful winds, and late Wednesday there were conflicting reports his body had been identified.

"No, he has not been found," his grandmother, Milissa Burns, posted sadly on the site Wednesday. "I'm following all leads both good and bad... I just pray we all can work together on this. God bless."

Teenager Lantz Hare, who was out driving with friends when the massive funnel cloud struck with winds of up to 200 miles (320 kilometers) an hour, was also missing.

"He was on the phone with another friend, we believe, when the tornado actually hit the car. His friend Ryan says he could literally hear the swoosh came through and the phone went dead," his mother Michelle told CNN.

The American Red Cross has set up a website for people to list the names of the missing, but they have had little success so far reuniting families.

"It's been very difficult. We'd like to see a much greater number of families reunited," said Bill Benson, who is handling the Red Cross's social media and online outreach.

"We have a constant influx of folks coming in desperate, asking can you help me -- we just don't know where to go."

Assistant shelter manager Amanda Marshall is among them -- her four-year-old niece and the girl's grandparents were nowhere to be found when her brother discovered the bodies of his wife and other daughter.

"I keep checking my cell phone -- I'm waiting for a text saying she's OK," Marshall told AFP.

Further complicating matters is the fact that officials have not released the names of the dead.

More than 8,000 structures in this town bordering the heartland states of Kansas and Oklahoma were damaged or destroyed when the twister came roaring through with just a 24-minute warning.

In yet another tragedy, more twisters hit Oklahoma late Tuesday, killing at least eight people.

Joplin avoided a second hit by tornado, but the violent storm system rattled already shaky nerves as residents were forced to seek shelter from strong winds and blinding rain.

US President Barack Obama, on a visit to London, again sent his condolences to the people of Missouri, ahead of a visit to the area on Sunday.

"We have been battered by some storms. Not just this week but over the last several months.

"The largest death toll and devastation we have ever seen from tornadoes in the United States of America," he said.

Missouri Governor Jay Nixon announced plans for a community memorial service Sunday as he vowed to do everything possible to help residents recover and rebuild.

"We're going to battle together and come back as a stronger community," he told reporters.

View the original article here

Body found of toddler missing in Joplin tornado (AP)

JOPLIN, Mo. – Authorities have identified the body of a toddler whose disappearance in the Joplin tornado drew an outpouring of concern when it was posted on Facebook.

His mother, Carol Jo Tate, told The Associated Press Wednesday that the body of 16-month-old Skyular Logsdon was identified at the morgue handling tornado victims.

More than 10,000 people supported a "Bring Skyular Logsdon home" page set up after the boy vanished in Sunday's tornado.

Tate, 18, remains hospitalized with severe injuries at Via Christi Hospital in Pittsburg, Kan.

View the original article here