and right now we just have to start from scratch. you can help them start from scratch. here is how. log on to cnn.com/impact and check out our special page. it has all the tools you need to make a difference for those people in joplin. well, where do the sick and injured go when their town s main hospital is blown away by a tornado? we re going to take you inside st. john s hospital in joplin, missouri, next.
outside and realized from the time you got in that bathroom to the time you got out, the world of joplin had changed. well, actually, you know, i just was trying to get myself out with desi. we got out. you don t think the rest of the world would disappear around you. at least i didn t. i wanted to get everybody. we were alive. i kept telling everybody, we re alive. we re okay. so we headed to the hospital. but when we walked outside it was a new world. everything was gone. everything was gone. and it was amazing. as big a structure as st. john s is, when we got to the inside of it, it was a complete disaster. i thought it would take out part of it, you know, in the front part, but it had sucked the whole inside on the ground floor out. rance, as i look behind you there, i m just wondering, do you see signs of hope? do you see signs that your community is going to come back from this? it will come back. it will take time. i think the people are strong
and right now we just have to start from scratch. you can help them start from scratch. here is how. log on to cnn.com/impact and check out our special page. it has all the tools you need to make a difference for those people in joplin. well, where do the sick and injured go when their town s main hospital is blown away by a tornado? we re going to take you inside st. john s hospital in joplin, missouri, next. [ female announcer ] the healing power of touch
reporter: but in those dark clouds, a monster tornado was headed right for them. at st. john s it was the moment they trained for that they hoped would never come. we drill well, actually just by virtue of the fact that we re in tornado alley down here, we prepare several times a month. reporter: but this was not a drill. it was a stormy day. we thought all was going well. reporter: angie abner was a nurse in the emergency room. of course, no one every thinks it s going to happen. nobody was really taking it serious. reporter: but the tornado was churning toward the hospital at 200 miles per hour. there wasn t a second to lose. i was in a triage center and heard loud train sounds and our security alerted me that we had to move quickly. the nurses had already warned everybody that we do have a tornado.
reporter: six people died at st. john s that day, but miraculously, most survived. this is the new tower. this is the original hospital. reporter: two days later, for jim risko, it s all sinking in. my heart s broken because my mom and dad died here. my son was born here. i have so many memories of working with the other doctors and the nurses and this is home. i mean, st. john s is more than a building. it s a spirit. we are asking what so many people in the midwest are asking. why? why are there so many powerful and deadly tornados this is year and how can you tell the strength of a tornado by looking at the damage? we ll have the science behind these killer tornadoes next.