and that wait can be the worst part. i was told that there was no body found in the rubble and that they had seen an elderly woman digging through the rubble. but they don t know where she went, you know. i can t locate her anywhere. reporter: tabitha freeman has been trying for days to locate her 67-year-old grandmother, ellen. she lived here on pitcher street where the homes are so demolished they have to be identified with spray paint on the sidewalk. that s the bathroom and it s they always say the safest place to be is in the bathroom and look, it s just even if she would have been in there, she wouldn t have made it because it s collapsed in on itself. reporter: tabitha drove to joplin from oklahoma, hoping to get answers after not being able to contact nearby relatives and trying online services. i have a lot of friends and family here in joplin and it s just the not knowing, you know. i mean i know a lot of people are missing loved ones. reporter: earlier i met
aaron s sister sarah. that s the really good news from that part of that story. there s still 230 some on the list of the missing but they ve managed to take a lot of people off the list as they ve matched people with people dislocated. jacqui jeras is along with our team in joplin this morning and has the story of another family whose grandmother went missing after the storm. what s the story? yeah. with an agonizing wait for tabitha freeman, her grandma was known to be in his house behind me at the time of the tornado. she didn t know what happened to her and yesterday i had the privilege of helping to find out what happened to grandma. i was told there was no body found in the rubble and that they had seen an elderly woman digging through the rubble, they don t know where she went, you know. i can t locate her anywhere. reporter: tabitha freeman has been trying tore days to locate her 67-year-old grandmother ellen. she lived here where the homes
in joplin, missouri today, relatives of tornado victims can go to the morgue to identify loved ones. missouri s governor says that many of the 132 bodies are in such bad shape that families are going to have to rely on a tattoo or other distinguishing marks. other remains will wait for dna analysis. not just a short time ago, officials lowered the number of missing in joplin to 156. tabitha freeman has been trying to find her grandmother in joplin for days now. she wasn t able to get in touch with any of her relatives in the area so freeman drove to joplin from her home in oklahoma to try to get some answers. she ran into a cnn crew outside her grandmother s demolished home. i saw a lot of friends and family and everything here in joplin. it s just the not knowing. i mean i know a lot of people are missing loved ones. earlier i met neighbor aaron cole who says he knows almost everyone on the block.
okay, no, that s fine as long as i know where she s at now. reporter: tabitha said she plans to get to know her grandmother better now. it s kind of sad to say it takes this to make you realize, you know, you don t really have all that long because you never know when it s going to end, you know. for all i knew, she could have been crushed or, you know, died or something. reporter: so a little bit of good news here on pitcher street. we have an update now on the condition of ellen freeman. she was in surgery this morning and is in recovery as we speak and tabitha has decided to drive to arkansas to be with her grandmother. it s so good to hear a good story coming out of this. obviously the two of them being brought together. how are people holding up now? how are their spirits? reporter: well, they re doing okay. you know, the first couple of days i think everybody seemed to be in a state of shock and disbelief that it was just very surreal. you know, the families that are