Inside the hospital as the Joplin tornado hit

No one panicked. Such calls are routine in Joplin, a zinc- and lead-mining town carved from the rock and fields of Tornado Alley.

Nurses pulled shades over windows to shield from flying debris. They rolled equipment from the halls, on the off chance patients would have to be moved there.

The sides of their dead

Hospital visitors left the sides of their dead and dying loved ones to carry fragile patients down blackened hallways, guided by the dim light of cell phones.

In the ER, Angie Abner, 40 — a paramedic who became a nurse only a year ago, and who has missed work the last two days because of food poisoning — has been doing triage. Now, minutes afterwards the call Execute Condition Gray, she is struggling to get patients to safety, into hallways and away from windows.

Citywide, texts flash on the phones of hospital staff riding out the storm in their homes: St. John’s has been hit.

Few know whether their loved ones are safe. Some text messages are getting through, however downed towers have silenced cell phones.

Also: Many physicians and hospital employees lost their homes or businesses. Here are conservative numbers St. John’s at first released: