Springtime rolls around, and that means colorful flowers, nice sunny days and tornadoes. Tornado season can be a very scary time, especially for those in the states located in tornado alley which include the western Midwest and some of the northern Southwest and Southeast United States. One of the most destructive tornadoes to ever make landfall was the tornado that hit Joplin, Missouri, on May 22, 2011. Netflix released “The Twister” with real-life footage of the tornado and the events that followed. The documentary was released on March 19, 2025.
The morning of the tornado is a typical spring Missouri day, with the weather being warm and humid. There had been a moderate risk sent out by the local weather station that was sent out in the morning, but nothing suggested that a tornado would strike the town. Netflix does a great job of interviewing the survivors, such as interviewing Kaylee and her friends, who were able to get footage with their phones of the tornado.
Around 5 p.m., local storm chasers, including Reed Timmer, who is an extreme meteorologist and storm chaser. They begin to track a massive supercell approaching the state line of Missouri. As time goes on, the storm intensifies with wind speeds reaching up to 100-115 mph at the time, and the tornado does not move that fast. At 5:17 p.m. The National Weather Service issued a tornado warning for Joplin.
Netflix crew interviews with Steven Weering, where he talks about how he was driving when the tornado touched down, and they also interview Cecil, who was in a shop when the tornado warning began. This far in the documentary, I’m very interested in the documentary, and Netflix does a spectacular job of the storyline of the tornado.
At 5:34 p.m., the tornado touches down on the west side of Joplin and the tornado intensifies to an EF5 tornado with winds exceeding 200 mph and grows to a mile wide. The hospital is hit as well as lots of stores, and cars are thrown into the air. Cecil talks about how when the tornado was hitting the ice cream shop, she was inside, and she kept praying and held onto pipes in the store’s backroom to keep her grounded.
People such as Steven Weersing were sucked up into the tornado and survived and Andrew Keegan Tinney who was the football team captain, and since his dad was a paramedic he was able to help save a lot of people from injuries due to the tornado. With the hospital in Joplin being hit by the tornado so being able to tend to people was very difficult. The local school district was forced to relocate classes to temporary facilities.
The Joplin tornado brought national attention, with President Barack Obama visiting Joplin to offer support, and Vice President Joe Biden attending the building of the new high school in 2014. This helped bring the community together and rebuild the town physically, as well as mentally.
Netflix did a tremendous job with this documentary. One thing they did specifically well was how they played the story out by including the real-life footage, but not overdoing it to the point where it wasn’t special anymore. The interviews were also very good because of how detailed they were about their experiences. I would recommend this documentary to anyone interested in Tornadoes and good storytelling. I give this documentary a 4.5/5.
