Friday, May 08, 2009

More Photos From KSNF-TV Joplin Tower Break



A
rapid-moving complex of severe thunderstorms raced from western Kansas late Thursday night through southern and southeastern Kansas overnight to around dawn- then sped east through southern Missouri during Friday morning.

The complex produced an arc of high- straight-line winds ahead of it- gusting possibly as high as "120 MPH" said the Associated Press.

Trees- power lines- homes- churches and other structures in the path of these winds suffered some degree of damage.

A woman was killed in Wilson county-KS and damage was heavy in the towns of New Albany and Fredonia.

The powerful gust front reached Joplin in southwest Missouri around 7 am..

Around that time is when the wind broke KSNF NBC-16's tower.

I call it a tower break and not a collapse because only about the top half of the 1000-foot-plus tower fell.

The tower piece(s) fell in a southeasterly trajectory as indicated by the dark line I've drawn on a Google Satellite pic-map of the incident.

The part of the tower that fell straight down landed on part of the TV station itself- a building shared by sister station and ABC affiliate KODE Channel 12.

Though the building was damaged- no one was hurt. Both stations are off the air.

A section of the tower then crashed down across Cleveland Street in southwest Joplin-
and onto an unoccupied SUV- crushing it- and part of the house where the vehicle was parked.

Three children and their mother was inside the house at the time- but none of them were injured.

The storms bolted eastward into the Republic- Springfield- Bolivar and Lebanon areas- doing damage- injuring people and even killing at least 3 more all along their path into the Ohio and Tennessee Valley areas by Friday afternoon.

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