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EDITOR’S NOTE: Neosho resident Bill Carlsten relates his first-hand experience in the May 22 tornado which devastated Joplin and ultimately killed more than 150 people. Carlsten, his wife, Susan, and her mother rode out the storm in an automobile.
We headed to Joplin from Neosho around 3 p.m. with the intent to do some shopping and eat at Culver’s in Webb City.
We picked up Susan’s mother, Roberta, and went to Target and Petsmart. We left Petsmart going west on 7th St, then north on Florida to Newman Rd, then going east to Rangeline. It was at the intersection of Newman Road and Rangeline Road that Susan pointed out the infamous golfball shaped clouds and we knew very bad weather was coming. Looking to the north, the sky was very black and to the south we could see blue sky.
We decided to go south on Rangeline Road and go to Freddie’s Steak burgers and Frozen Custard instead to eat quickly and head home.
There were three big flat screen TVs at Freddie’s. At about 5:15 or 5:20 p.m., I wondered why the management didn’t have the Weather Channel on one of the TVs considering the tornado watch. In a few minutes, with no indication of anything, both Susan and I felt uneasy and told her mother that we needed to leave. We pulled onto Rangeline heading north to turn left onto 15th Street. For some unknown reason with a car sitting ahead of us at the signal, the signal skipped the left turn arrow. We sat through another full cycle of the traffic light and then got the green arrow to proceed west on 15th Street. We went to Connecticut and turned left, to 20th, turned right, and then turned left headed south on Wisconsin Ave.
The tornado hits
As we got to about the 2200 block, very large hail started hitting the car, followed by a tremendous down pour of rain, hence no visibility. At that moment Susan saw a tree go across the road about 50 feet in front of us. She immediately parked up against the curb on the west side of the street. She didn’t turn off the car, but keep her feet on the clutch and brake. We all bent down in our seats and tried to cover our heads. Susan was in the driver’s seat. Her mother in the front passenger seat and I was in the back seat.
Almost immediately the left rear window blew out, followed by the other side windows and then the front windshield shattered but stayed intact. A very high velocity wind blew through the car. The roaring noise lasted at least 30 seconds. A sheet of metal roofing tried to come in through the windshield throwing glass, but got wedged and rested on the steering wheel. The inside of the car filled with shredded trash and shattered pieces of roof decking, insulation, etc. A stuffed teddy bear, kitchen spices, a telephone book, and a new rechargeable battery pack still in its package also joined me in the rear seat. The car did not move or shake.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Neosho resident Bill Carlsten relates his first-hand experience in the May 22 tornado which devastated Joplin and ultimately killed more than 150 people. Carlsten, his wife, Susan, and her mother rode out the storm in an automobile.
We headed to Joplin from Neosho around 3 p.m. with the intent to do some shopping and eat at Culver’s in Webb City.
We picked up Susan’s mother, Roberta, and went to Target and Petsmart. We left Petsmart going west on 7th St, then north on Florida to Newman Rd, then going east to Rangeline. It was at the intersection of Newman Road and Rangeline Road that Susan pointed out the infamous golfball shaped clouds and we knew very bad weather was coming. Looking to the north, the sky was very black and to the south we could see blue sky.
We decided to go south on Rangeline Road and go to Freddie’s Steak burgers and Frozen Custard instead to eat quickly and head home.
There were three big flat screen TVs at Freddie’s. At about 5:15 or 5:20 p.m., I wondered why the management didn’t have the Weather Channel on one of the TVs considering the tornado watch. In a few minutes, with no indication of anything, both Susan and I felt uneasy and told her mother that we needed to leave. We pulled onto Rangeline heading north to turn left onto 15th Street. For some unknown reason with a car sitting ahead of us at the signal, the signal skipped the left turn arrow. We sat through another full cycle of the traffic light and then got the green arrow to proceed west on 15th Street. We went to Connecticut and turned left, to 20th, turned right, and then turned left headed south on Wisconsin Ave.
The tornado hits
As we got to about the 2200 block, very large hail started hitting the car, followed by a tremendous down pour of rain, hence no visibility. At that moment Susan saw a tree go across the road about 50 feet in front of us. She immediately parked up against the curb on the west side of the street. She didn’t turn off the car, but keep her feet on the clutch and brake. We all bent down in our seats and tried to cover our heads. Susan was in the driver’s seat. Her mother in the front passenger seat and I was in the back seat.
Almost immediately the left rear window blew out, followed by the other side windows and then the front windshield shattered but stayed intact. A very high velocity wind blew through the car. The roaring noise lasted at least 30 seconds. A sheet of metal roofing tried to come in through the windshield throwing glass, but got wedged and rested on the steering wheel. The inside of the car filled with shredded trash and shattered pieces of roof decking, insulation, etc. A stuffed teddy bear, kitchen spices, a telephone book, and a new rechargeable battery pack still in its package also joined me in the rear seat. The car did not move or shake.
When I thought it was over, I sat up to find out that it wasn’t over because I got hit in the face and right arm by something. I immediately laid back down. I waited another 30 seconds or so and sat up to see it had stopped. I saw the girls bent down and sitting perfectly still. That scared me. Then I spoke to them both and they answered me.
The aftermath
I climbed out of the right rear passenger window, which was void of any glass. When I looked around I saw the total destruction, I looked at Susan’s mother and she had deep lacerations to her right arm and head. I walked around the rear of the car and as I approached the left rear tire, I saw a small black Labrador puppy, maybe 6 weeks old, lying on the pavement shaking. Speaking to Susan she told me to put it in the back seat as she was injured. She had a deep laceration on her right hand above her wrist. All of us had small puncture wounds and bruising from flying debris. I tried to no avail to open the driver’s door but there was no handle. I looked in front of the car, it was then I noticed the silence, that the weather was now perfectly quiet and calm. I pulled the bent sheet metal panel out of the windshield and then I saw a tarp about 525 feet in front of the car. It was a 5 by 10 foot heavy green tarp lying in the road. One corner tie was caught on something. I was in awe, instantly having the thought: here is the tarp for you to place over the car to keep the girls warm and out of the rain. I was dripping wet and standing in four inches of water that was running down the road. I pulled the tarp over the car and again tried to open the driver’s door. All the door handles had been stripped from the car.
At this point the silence was broken and we began to hear people yelling and crying for their families. I knew help was not coming in the very near future, so I decided to leave the girls and head up to 2900 Wisconsin to see if Susan’s mother’s house was still standing and get a crowbar hanging in the garage. The house was still there, no electricity, and I got in the house to get towels out of the linen closet. The towels were actually in the bathroom and I had instead grabbed several of Susan’s mother’s blouses.
I got into the garage for the crowbar, locked up the house and headed back north on Wisconsin to the car.
Help arrives
As I walked very fast across 26th Street, carrying the crowbar, cars were already lined up and I was cutting in front of the slow-moving cars. Someone yelled out that I was hurt and bleeding. I yelled back that my family was trapped in our car. About 25th Street, a family in a large white club cab pickup caught up to me and asked if I needed help. I pointed to the car under the tarp about two blocks north. I said they were trapped in the car. When I joined them, we tried once more to get the doors open even using the crow bar with no luck. The west side, passenger side, of the car had debris piled up about eight inches against the car. As we were clearing the debris and were working to get the passenger side door open, the father of the lady who had lived in the destroyed house which we sat in front of, arrived. He ran up and tried the driver’s door while Susan operated the electric door locks and inside door handle. The driver’s door opened. They ushered Susan into the truck and we slid her mother out backwards, across the front seats, through the driver’s door. The man who got the driver’s door open carried her mother and placed her in the truck. They now were asking me to get in the truck when another man wearing a tan polo shirt caught my attention, looked me straight in the eye and asked is there anything he can do? I then remembered the little puppy and said yes. I handed him the puppy and he immediately held the little dog to his breast and I told him that I had given the dog to the right person. He smiled and immediately turned to the south and left. I then got in the truck.
Hospital trip
It was still light and the driver tried to turn west onto 20th Street, but the line of cars was too long. He said we are going anyway and went down 20th to Main Street in the oncoming lane with his emergency flashers going.
When we got to Main Street, he told a state trooper he had injured people who needed to get to the hospital. The trooper redirected us into the Walgreen’s parking lot where a triage station had been set up. They immediately tended to our wounds and tried their very best to get us warm and comfort us. Susan and her mother were taken on the first truck to the hospital. Because I was stabilized and there were people in much worse shape, I remained wrapped in blankets, cold, wet, and chilled until around 10:30 p.m. when I was taken to Freeman – Joplin. I was taken with six others by volunteer EMTs using a club cab pickup. We had to try several routes and eventually ended up on Maiden Lane at St. John’s hospital, which was totally destroyed. The road was barricaded. We traveled the road behind St. John’s to get to Freeman Hospital.
When we got to the emergency room entrance we were told to just go in with the others that were waiting. Once, inside, there were injured people everywhere. I walked around looking for Susan and her mother, but could not find them. My cell phone had disappeared in the car during the tornado and cell phones for the most part were out of service anyway. I then spotted a vacant chair and asked if I could sit down. The man said sure. I told him I guess we were there for the duration and he asked if I’d seen the nurse. He pointed her out and I went and told her where I was sitting. She came over when she had finished with another person and got my name and birth date. The hospital was operating on its emergency generator. I had a pressure wrap on the laceration on the back of my left hand. However, it was still bleeding and I was dripping blood.
To my surprise I was called in about 10 minutes and went down to a temporary treatment center that had just been set up and opened. There I was interrogated, checked over, and the lacerations on my left hand and over my right eye where cleaned and sutured.
The trip home
About midnight I was released to go back upstairs where I asked a security guard what was my next step to get home. He said that he didn’t know, but would find out and he left. But about 12:30 a.m., he had not returned and I asked a lady at the information desk. She said they were working on that and where did I need to go? I said to Neosho. She told me to stand right there and not to move away. Somewhere around 1 am a lady asked if I was needing to go to Neosho and if so to follow her. We went out the south entrance of emergency and there were several injured people waiting. I saw a man with a cell phone and asked him if it was working. He said that it would work for a short time and then it wouldn’t work. He dialed a friend of ours in Neosho and the call went through. I found out that Susan and her mother were at the Freeman Neosho Hospital and they learned where I was located and that I was heading to Freeman Neosho. School buses were being used to carry stabilized injured people to other area hospitals for treatment. They put me on the bus to help and to get me to Neosho. I rode with a man who had a dislocated shoulder with his arm broke in four places. We arrived about 2:15 a.m. Monday morning where I found Susan waiting for her mother who still was in surgery. We got home around 3 a.m.
There are many more details of the actions of wonderful people especially at Walgreen’s and the hospital. Angels are among us!
I have to reflect on the three men who died who resided at the group home at 2304 Iowa: Mark Farmer, Rick Fox, and Tripp Miller. They all had Down syndrome. Mark lived next door to us for 20 years in Joplin and was like a brother to us. Rick and Tripp have been our dear friends over those many years. I rejoice in 1 Corinthians 13:10 as they now have perfect bodies.
