JOPLIN, Mo. -- St. John's Regional Medical Center, the hospital ravaged by the Joplin tornado, will be rebuilt, officials said Wednesday.
In the meantime, patients have been transported to other facilities and a makeshift clinic is being operated at Joplin Memorial Hall.
Sean Smith, an emergency medicine physician, told a press conference Wednesday that the about 400-room hospital "looked like a bomb exploded inside."
New on Wednesday also was a regulation that anybody needing to get into the most heavily damaged areas of the city will need official credentials or ID placards. People must state their purpose for entering those areas. Those would include volunteers, workers and residents trying to get back to their homes.
Lines at the four signup sites started at 6 a.m. CDT, and by 9 a.m. one line was at least 400 people long. The pace was frustrating to people in line.
"We want to get back in and get what stuff we can out," said Susan Warden. She said the windows are out of her house and the roof is caved in.
"We had other people's siding in our house," she said.
And then she asked a question:
"Is this Wednesday?"
J.D. Stevens had traveled from West Plains, Mo., to volunteer, and he had been doing search and rescue since Monday.
"You just do what you've got to do," he said.
Also standing in line was Roger Hoyt from Kansas City, who went down to see what he could salvage from his father's house. His father is in an assisted living center.
At the signup site Crossroads Chevrolet/Cadillac car dealership, workers ran out of the pink card permits that would allow residents into heavily damaged areas.
In spite of the importance that the city placed on the permits, those still in line were told they could go on in with just a driver's license.
In other developments, FEMA has opened up an office at a Methodist Church at Fourth Street and Byers.
The city also announced a business recovery center had opened to assist owners of businesses and shops damaged by tornados. Officials with the Small Business Administration will be on site to help those owners with details of low-interest loans.
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