A Gloomy Night Searching For Life

Michael Overall: JOPLIN, Mo. – A front-loader goes down the street first, pushing aside tree trunks and rooftops and overturned cars, clearing a path for the firetruck.

"Over there," a sheriff's deputy says as he points a flashlight at a particular pile of debris. "That's where it is."

It's 2 a.m. Monday, nearly nine hours after a massive tornado left a good part of central Joplin looking like Berlin at the end of World War II.

Nothing but rubble stretches for mile after mile, dazed survivors wandering through the wreckage, the night so dark that a downed power line stays invisible until it's already underfoot.