Warm air rises. The earth is an elegant machine, and this is one of its
simple and tireless engines, recycling the oceans into life-giving rains,
wafting rainbow-striped hot-air balloons into clear skies, putting the dance
in the flame of a birthday candle. This law must not be thwarted. There is
hell to pay.
On Sunday, May 22, sometime after 5 p.m. C.T. in the Midwest, a column of
warm air struggled against a ceiling of colder air pouring in from the
north. When at last the irresistible engine pushed a hole through the
ceiling, the pent-up energy shot upward in a mad rush, whirling and roaring.
It could have happened anywhere on the mostly empty prairie. This time it
happened as the air mass passed through the south side of Joplin, Mo.
It sucked the roof from St. John’s Regional Medical Center and shattered the
windows, sweeping reams of medical records heavenward. It snipped utility
lines like thread and pulverized St. Mary’s Church and school yet left the
giant cross towering over the rubble, unscathed.
