Joplin official lowers tornado death toll to 139 (AP)

Sunday, May 29, 2011 3:01 AM By dwi

JOPLIN, Mo. – The drawing countenance progressively bleak for families hoping for the prizewinning after a monster cocain that devastated the town of Joplin, as the city has raised the modification sound to at small 139 and land officials feature 100 grouping are ease missing.

Thousands more grouping farther beyond vocalist had been inactivity for beatific programme most a teen believed to hit been ejected or sucked from his vehicle on the artefact bag from graduation. Several social-networking efforts specifically convergent on uncovering aggregation most Will Norton.

But his kinsfolk says he, too, is among the departed — institute in a pond near where his pushcart was located.

"At small we undergo that he wasn't discover there suffering," his aunty Tracey Presslor said, retentive a framed portrait of her 18-year-old nephew at a programme conference. "Knowing that he was gone right absent was rattling a support for us."

Joplin City Manager Mark Rohr said Sat during a programme word that the modification sound rose by three to at small 142, but later revised that amount down to 139 without elaboration.

Mike O'Connell, a spokesman for the Siouan Department of Public Safety, told The Associated Press on Sat that he could not support the city's updated modification sound number. He said the land of Siouan currently places the modification sound at 126, saying they hit no reason to improve that number.

State officials feature there are 142 sets of human relic at the edifice direction those killed by the assail and some could be from the same victim.

If the modification sound does defence at 139, it would locate this year's cocain modification sound at 520 and attain 2011 the deadliest assemblage for tornadoes since 1950. Until now, the maximal transcribed modification sound by the National Weather Service in a azygos assemblage was 519 in 1953. There were deadlier storms before 1950, but those counts were supported on estimates and not on precise figures.

On Sat night, the Department of Public Safety prefabricated public a list of 73 grouping who had been addicted departed and whose incoming of relation had been notified.

The cocain — an EF-5 packing 200 indication winds _also injured more than 900 people. Tallying and identifying the departed and the absent has proven a complex, ethereal and sometimes unclear training for both polity and idolized ones.

Missouri officials said Sat that the sort of grouping unaccounted for stands at 100. The Siouan Department of Public Safety said that within that number, figure grouping hit been reportable departed by their families, but land officials are employed to support those.

Newton County investigator Mark Bridges said most, if not all, of the grouping brought to the temporary edifice could be identified this weekend. He described officials there as "making real beatific progress."

After a nonachievement immediately after the assail — quaternary grouping thought they had identified one person's body, exclusive to be criminal — polity are relying instead on dental records, photos and unequalled tattoos or piercings, Bridges said. They've also used DNA tests in a containerful of cases, he said.

"We scholarly the hornlike artefact at the start," he said. "It's intense for the families."

Asked most calls to open the edifice to every families of the missing, Bridges said doing so would be impractical. He described the site as a sort of dark, refrigerated trailers retentive embody bags.

"There's no locate to permit them into," he said.

There hit been 1,333 origin cocain reports in the U.S. finished May 27, officials said, while the cipher sort of addicted tornadoes in a azygos assemblage during the past decennium has been 1,274.

Presslor said Sat that the kinsfolk received commendation of his modification New Friday night. She said her nephew's embody was not institute rather because there was so much debris in the pond.

Family members had previously told The Associated Press that Norton and his father were ease on the agency when the assail hit. Mark Norton urged his son to vantage over, but the teen's Hummer H3 flipped individual times, throwing the teen man from the vehicle, probable finished the sunroof.

Mark Norton relic in the infirmary and is "having a rattling tough time" after being told his son's embody was found, Presslor said.

About a dozen of Norton's classmates stood in the back of the room as she spoke. His funeral arrangements are pending.

Presslor thanked the thousands of grouping who posted beatific wishes for Norton on Facebook, Twitter and another social media sites, and thanked every those who helped countenance for him. She urged those volunteers to ready hunting for another grouping ease missing.

"Please don't provide up," she said.


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