RACINE, Mo. – A twister tore through a 12-mile stretch of Newton County, destroying lives, homes and businesses and toppling cars. The hardest hit area was near Racine where the tornado was rated EF4, with winds of approximately 170 miles per hours.

It looks like a war zone, with roofs ripped off homes, walls peeled back and stuff that once laid inside now scattered outside.

That's what you can see. What's not so obvious is the shear number of lives lost -- 13 at last count in Newton County. Five of them were related to Zac Bilke.

“I'm still kind of in shock. When you lose five family members, my dad's side, his immediate family, is gone,” said Bilke.

Bilke says he and his wife were supposed to go to a wedding. Instead, they took cover but it was too late for some of his family members already on the road.

“Four of my family members were in the same car: grandma, aunt, uncle and cousin who was 13,” he said.

Those four were Richard, Kathy and Clayton Rountree and Ruby Bilke, all of Joplin. Ruby was Kathy Rountree's mother. Clayton was the son of Richard and Kathy. Their car was blown off a road near Missouri 43 at Iris Road.

Bilke’s fifth family member killed in the tornado was his wife's grandpa, Paul Gallemore. On Mother's Day, Bilke and others helped Gallemore's widow, who was in the same house yet survived.

“I grabbed my little white dog and I bowed down over her, got down on my hands and knees and bowed down under the shelf and pulled an afghan over my head and stayed over her and just rode it out,” said Dee Ann Gallemore.

Gallemore escaped unharmed while hiding in a closet.

“It's a miracle because she was right in the middle of the part of the house left standing,” said Bilke.

But Paul Gallemore wasn't nearly as lucky.

“When I started seeing hail and whirling trees, I tried to get Paul to come downstairs but he wouldn't,” said Gallemore.

Gallemore says her husband was watching TV in the room that was directly above the kitchen, which is one of the only rooms not destroyed.

“I started hollering for Paul, he wouldn't answer me and I knew he was gone,” she said.

“I think dad might have been in heaven before she got in the closet,” said Kim Gallemore, daughter of Paul and Dee Ann.

Dee Ann says she found Paul's body lying among the debris.

“I know Paul is better off, he was in so much pain everyday,” she said.

Dee Ann watched her husband battle congestive heart failure. Now she's fighting her own battle, living life without him.

Her family and friends are helping her pick up the pieces. The only keepsakes she has of Paul are strewn throughout the yard, buried among the rubble.

“We pulled some albums out around debris, those are the things we like to find most,”

“Oh yes,” Dee Ann sobbed, looking at a decades-old picture of her husband.

“The tears flow a lot. We find the knife dad carved, wood stick he carved for mom 30 years ago; we cry but it’s good memories,” said Kim.

For Bilke, who lost so many loved ones, being here to clean up is therapeutic in a way.

“I guess this helps being out here,” he said. “I'm just torn; it's kind of hard for me.”

But they have each other, this smaller family that has grown even closer.