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Obama to visit tornado-ravaged Joplin; renamed hospital reopens

Posted: May 29, 2011 11:06 AM by CNN Wire Staff

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(CNN) -- For the third time in a month, President Barack Obama on Sunday plans to visit a community savaged by a terrible act of nature, comfort survivors who've lost everything and talk with local leaders about rebuilding.

This time Obama is scheduled to visit Joplin, Missouri. A week ago, a twister packing winds of more than 200 mph ripped through the town, destroying neighborhoods and killing more people than any other U.S. tornado since modern record-keeping began in 1950.

Early Sunday morning, Joplin City Manager Mark Rohr told CNN the death toll was 142. State authorities have released the names of 87 victims.

The number of those unaccounted for has decreased to 44, MIssouri Gov. Jay Nixon told CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday. He said Missouri state troopers made death notifications to families throughout the night, sitting with some families for hours as they grieved.

Some of those 44 may be in the morgue, Nixon said. Damage to some of the bodies means DNA testing must be conducted in order to identify them.

The list of those who perished includes 1-year-old Hayze Howard, the youngest identified victim, and Nancy E. Douthitt, 94, the oldest, according to the Missouri Department of Public Safety.

Another child, 1-year-old Joshua Vanderhoofven, died along with his mother, Dee Vanderhoofven, according to her obituary in the Joplin Globe newspaper.

The list also includes Will Norton, an 18-year-old whose disappearance during the storm attracted national attention. The May 22 twister swept Norton out of the arms of his father as the two drove home from the son's high school graduation.

Asked why the number of fatalities was so high, Nixon cited the "total destruction" left by the twister. In one household, a young woman got into the home's bathtub, and her husband lay down on top of her to protect her, he said. The man was impaled by debris and died; the woman survived.

"Folks are beyond homeless here," the governor said. "Their homes don't exist ... the power and destruction here was unimaginable."

Obama's scheduled visit comes exactly one month after he visited Tuscaloosa, Alabama, where a tornado of similar force had ripped through the city and killed 41 people.

And on May 16, the president traveled to Memphis, Tennessee, to meet people displaced from their homes by a historic Mississippi River flood.

Along with touring damage sites, Obama is scheduled to join Nixon at a special memorial service at Missouri Southern State University in honor of those killed and the thousands more affected by the tornado. The president will deliver brief remarks at the service, according to a statement released by the White House.

"We're going to rebuild Joplin," Nixon said. "We're going to focus on rebuilding our souls today."

Meanwhile, a hospital that suffered a direct hit from the twister was reopening Sunday in a temporary facility and with a different name.

St. John's Regional Medical Center suffered heavy damage from the tornado, prompting the evacuation of its patients and staff. On Sunday, according to a statement from hospital spokesman Cora Scott, St. John's Mercy Hospital was beginning to see patients in its temporary facility across the parking lot from the damaged hospital building.

"The building is not St. John's," Dr. Bob Dodson, who is working to set up the temporary hospital, said in the statement. "St. John's is the people who worked in that building. And they're going to be the people in this building."

The temporary facility will have an emergency department, surgical suites, MRI and CT scan capabilities, a pharmacy, and 60 inpatient beds. It is being build to withstand 100-mph winds, Scott said.

The temporary hospital will be in operation until a more permanent facility can be built, which will house the hospital while the campus is being reconstructed, according to the statement.

At 5:41 p.m. (6:41 p.m. ET) Sunday, exactly one week after the EF-5 tornado touched down in Joplin, the city will observe a moment of silence for the victims, including those who have yet to be identified and others that may yet be found.

"We're still in search-and-rescue mode," Rohr said Saturday, adding that more than 500 search-and-rescue volunteers were in Joplin on Saturday working.

Andrea Spillars, deputy director of the Missouri Department of Public Safety, acknowledged Saturday that families waiting for information on missing relatives are frustrated that the identification process hasn't proceeded quickly enough the past week.

Authorities are relying on scientific identification of the remains. While that process is slower, it's more reliable than a family member's visual identification, Spillars said.

Authorities are using past X-rays, dental records and body markings to help identify bodies, Spillars said.

"We will go through this process as quickly as possible, knowing how important it is to be accurate," she said. "We know that this has been a community that has been tragically impacted by this."

More than 50 state troopers were working around the clock on the cases, she added.

Norton's body was found Friday by divers in a pond close to where his vehicle had been. The tornado destroyed the Hummer H3 he and his father were in. A relative said the teen's father did all he could to keep his son from being swept away by the tornado.

"Mark (Norton's father) said that he reached over and he grabbed Will with both of his arms," said Tracey Presslor, Norton's aunt. "He held on to him until he possibly couldn't anymore, and so he's feeling really bad about that because as a dad you don't want to ever let go of your kids."

"You want to protect them forever, Presslor said as she cried. "But at least we know that he did absolutely everything he possibly could."

Meanwhile a "boil water" order was lifted for Joplin as of Saturday, according to Missouri American Water.

"Customers were asked to boil their water following (a) loss of pressure throughout the system from damages caused by the tornado," the company said in a statement. But tests confirmed the water is safe for consumption.

-- CNN's Casey Wian, Dugald McConnell and Michael Martinez contributed to this report.

© 2011 Cable News Network, Inc., a Time Warner Company. All rights reserved.

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