The city of Joplin, Mo. is reeling from the effects of a Sunday evening tornado that has left at least 116 dead and done substantial damage to numerous homes and businesses.
Severe damage to Joplin’s infrastructure has included many phone lines and cell phone towers being down, and calls made to the city’s CVB and its most substantial meetings facility—the Holiday Inn Joplin Convention Center Hotel—were not picked up as this story was going live. Reports from Holiday Inn’s corporate offices, however, indicated the facility is temporarily without electrical power and phone service—but has suffered no significant structural damage.
President Obama has ordered FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate and an incident management team to Joplin to organize federal disaster relief assistance efforts, and more than 1,500 police officers and firefighters are on the scene combing the wreckage for survivors.
Meetings Focus will aim to provide additional details on the situation as they become available.
