Joplin tornado death toll mounts, many still missing

Rescue and recovery teams scoured the wreckage of the small city, which was devastated by a high-velocity whirl of wind that destroyed about 2,000 buildings.

Forecasters expected new storms to move into the area during the night as a line of tornadoes marched eastward from Oklahoma, where at least two people were killed and many more were injured when a tornado struck west of Oklahoma City. Two more people died in Kansas in storms there Tuesday.

Even so, rescuers in Joplin vowed to work as long as possible through the night searching for survivors. "There is always hope that you will find someone alive," said city spokesman Dan Crain.

Among those missing was toddler Skyular Logsdon, whose red T-shirt and pants were found torn, rain-soaked and wrapped around a telephone pole.

The little boy has not been seen since Sunday night when the tornado ripped through the center of the town of 50,000 in southwest Missouri. His parents were found alive and were hospitalized, but the family home was demolished and the boy was lost in the whirling darkness.

Follow us

Relatives have mounted their own search, picking through rubble and checking with morgues and hospitals in the hope that he will turn up.

"We still have not heard anything. But we're not going to stop until we find him," said the boy's great grandmother, Deb Cummins.

Authorities said they were racing against the prospect of more bad weather as well as grim survival odds for anyone still trapped after the tornado uprooted trees, twisted cars into heaps of metal and destroyed homes, churches, schools and a line of restaurants and businesses.

In Joplin, authorities said they would search for as long as they could without endangering their rescue teams.

For Kenny McKeel, the search for his lost family is already over. Only hours after the tornado hit, McKeel found his father's body and that of his stepmother laid out on the lawn, their home collapsed around them. The neighbors -- a couple and three children -- also died, he said.

McKeel pulled his father's cane from the debris and tried to hold back tears. "I see this stuff. It means a lot to me," said McKeel. "And it kills me."

DEADLIEST IN DECADES

The tornado that hit Joplin with winds of nearly 200 miles per hour was the deadliest single twister in the United States since 1947, when a tornado in Woodland, Oklahoma, killed 181 people.

The funnel cloud cut a path nearly six miles long and up to 3/4 mile wide.