TORNADO COVERAGE: Photos now available

Below are several images taken today as residents and citizens began the task of going through the debris of Sunday's historic EF5 tornado in Joplin, Mo.

These photos are available for all ACM newspapers and websites to use.

Click images to view and drag to desktop to download. Please credit Rick Rogers / ACM News Service

Several homes were adorned with American flags as a show of patriotism in the destruction zone near the intersection of 20th and Connecticut streets in the heart of Joplin. On Wednesday, the clean-up process began as the late morning and early afternoon featured sunshine and warm temperatures.

These friends meet each other outside the Somerset apartment complex, located at 20th St., and Connecticut Ave., as they try to clean up the debris of their belongings in the wake of Sunday's EF5 tornado that killed more than 120 people and caused widespread damage throughout Joplin, Mo., a town of 50,000 residents. 

One of the only things standing in the middle of the Somerset apartment complex
was this tree, which had several limbs, all its leaves and some of its bark stripped off by the 200-plus mile-per-hour winds of the EF5 tornado.

Brandon Jewett props up an American flag that he found inside the rubble of the Somerset apartment complex on Wednesday afternoon, which sustained complete destruction from Sunday's EF5 tornado in Joplin, Mo., a town of 50,000 residents. According to residents who were cleaning up the widespread debris at the complex, there were no known fatalities but several minor and major injuries. Helping Jewett where Joey Bivens and Lindsey Dooley. 

Citizens start shifting through the rubble of an apartment complex located near 20th Street in Joplin on Wednesday, taking advantage of rare good weather after Sunday's EF5 tornado caused widespread death and damage to nearly 30 percent of the town of 50,000. 

This Santa Claus hat found an usual home in this bush outside one of the heavily damaged apartment buildings in the Somerset complex, located at 20th and Connecticut in Joplin, Mo. 

Joplin resident Stephanie Goad stands in what used to be her top story of the split-level home she shared with her husband, Dave, and two sons, Zach and Dylan. Dave and Stephanie were home at the time of the tornado struck, and took shelter in a downstairs bathroom. They emerged to find the top level of their home destroyed, along with nearly the rest of the homes in their neighborhood at 22nd Street and New Jersey. 

Residents of this apartment complex located south of a major grocery store on 20th Street in Joplin were busy looking for anything to salvage from Sunday's deadly and historic tornado. There was a concern with officials nearby that the structures were not safe for citizens to be in. 

Police officers question a man Wednesday on whether he was a resident of the apartment complex he was sifting through Wednesday afternoon in the devastated region of Joplin after Sunday's EF5 tornado. The man assured the officers he lived in the apartment complex. There were several reports of looting in the damaged area on Monday and Tuesday, despite heavy law enforcement presence. 

This volunteer fires up his chainsaw at this damaged home at 2405 Montana Place in south Joplin. This home was one of the more heavily damaged houses coming in from the south toward the epicenter of the damage along 20th Street, which runs east and west through Joplin. Volunteers were seen throughout this area of Joplin, using chainsaws, cleaning debris and assisting loved ones and strangers as the cleanup process began Wednesday after Sunday's historic EF5 tornado. 

Volunteer survey the damage in the Somerset apartment complex, located on 20th Street and Connecticut Ave., which
was completed destroyed by Sunday's EF5 tornado in Joplin, a town of 50,000 citizens.