Hi everyone, our first search dog from kentucky was able to help confirm 5 victims dead with the Missouri fema USAR team from MO. She informed me that our help was in fact needed. After completing our case on the border of Ohio and West Virginia. we stopped in to Joplin MO. We checked into a the EOC, Emergnecy Operations Center (Head quarters). They were glad we had arrived and together we developed an additional search plan. We signed in and went to work.

The EOC wanted us to work with the non fema Missouri search dog teams. When we went over and talked with their person in charge chel Demery, she informed me that 10 new dog teams had just arrived and no further assistance was needed as all the areas had already been searched 5 times. Nothing more needed to be done. All searches have a beginning and an end. This case was at it's end. I was glad to hear the effort was winding down.

We completed our assignment with the EOC, (our dogs and handlers were hot and tired) we then did some grief counceling with some of the police officers on scene and left for home as we have several more SAR calls pending to handle upon our return.
Joplin MO looked like a bomb blew up a 13 mile strectch of city.

What a mess. Stop signs were blown through the high school down into the basement and stuck in the walls. Cars were picked up and blown accross a high school track and smashed into a fence. Hundreds of houses / offices/ buildings were turned into toothpick sized wood.

Brick, steel, wood, it didn't matter. And OMG Even McDonalds was destroyed.
We've got lots of pictures and will have them on our web site soon.
I wanted to take a moment and say THANK YOU to all of the FEMA and Non fema teams that responded.

They all did an excellent job. There were body parts (pieces of bodies) blown throughout the search area which all the search dog teams including ours alerted on.
We had to watch where we walked. Nails pointing skyward, broken glass, sharp metal everywhere we walked.

One tow track driver who talked with us told us he has had 21 flat tires on is vehicle alone from all the sharp objects blown into the roadway.
One of the firemen working the scene expressed his concerns about a woman he had seen using two german shepherds in her search for victims. He stated "she had absolutely no control over her dogs. And besides being unprofessional
with her screaming and abusive actions toward her search dogs he watched in horror as this person put on shock collars and shocked her dogs into submission".

I told the firefighter the following." This one dog handler imprinted a negative sight on all the firefighters working the scene. You never ever use a shock collar on a dog. It's abusive. If you can't control your dog you have no business
being on a search scene. And, you don't want to use any devise that sets off sparks in and around possible gas leaks. Had I seen this individual do this, I would have had her thrown out of the search scene immediately. There's no room in sar especially on a disaster search for abusive people who can't control their emotions and their own dogs, and who endanger innocent lives".

There was some looting going on while we were there. But all in all the Police depts, Military Police, local citizens kept a good eye on the scene. The local area churches provided an endless supply of volunteers to help sort through debris piles.
When a class 5 tornado with winds in excess of 200 miles hits a human body, it literally shreds it. There will be some remains that never will be found. What complicated the search efforts was the heat, humidity, and lots of snakes. Copperheads, rattle snakes ( I hate snakes).

One dog team found a mans pants, the belt still buckled shut zipper closed. Wallet, money, keys still in the pants.

This tornado literally stripped the clothing from the victim. I've seen this before in bomb blasts but i'st hard to believe the wind has such strength.

I'm going to post photos of the search efforts and scene. But out of respect for the dead victims, I'm not going to show anyone any photographs of the dead and or their remains.

harry www.k9sardog.com