before touching down, air force 1 flew over joplin, missouri, giving the president an aerial view of the devastation. what took months and years to build was destroyed in a few moments. homes, businesses, and anything else in the tornado s path. on the ground, it was a somber president surveying breathtaking damage up close. meeting with officials, survivors and promising not to abandon this city. what i ve been telling every family that i ve met here is, we re going to be here long of a the cameras leave. we are not going to stop until joplin is fully back on its feet. there is plenty of pain here but also plenty of hope. roadways were lined with thousands of people, some waving flags or holding signes with messages like, god bless joplin. at a memorial service on the campus of missouri southern state university, that escaped the tornado s wrath we will be with you every step of the way. we re not going anywhere.
what s happening. that s ahead. we will have the latest on this developing story in a few minutes from now. president obama is back at the white house of a spending several hours in joplin, missouri. it was exactly a week ago that an f-5 tornado ripped through the city killing people in minutes. 5:41 central time there was a moment of silence marked by the precise instant that tornado hit. our dan traveled with the president to joplin and dan, a tough job for the president to try to lift spirits of a being amongest the people but seeing this disaster first-hand. this is a president who has had to do this quite a bit lately. other natural disasters as well. the president as you know last week was overseas among other things building relationships with european partners. throughout that time, white house aid said the president was getting updates on the situation here in joplin. today the president got to see the devastation up close. before touching down, air force 1 fle