Patrick Fallon for The New York TimesBrie Watson, a nurse, directed people to the stairwells as they moved to the basement of the Red Cross shelter at the Missouri Southern State University gymnasium on Tuesday night as another storm passed nearby. 
JOPLIN, Mo. — As rescue workers continue to sift through the wreckage of this city piece by piece, hoping to unearth survivors and victims of a lethal tornado, local leaders have been wrestling with the difficult question of when to start cleaning up the destroyed area.
TimesCast | Search Continues in JoplinThey know that ultimately they must sweep away what the storm did not.
But so far the word bulldoze is one that they have been hesitant to use in news conferences, as rescue and recovery efforts continue. But they acknowledge that it is only a matter of time before the battered and blown-down houses, which cover an area stretching more than a half-mile wide and six miles long, have to be stripped to their foundations and hauled away.
Standing in a wreckage-strewn park across from a hospital that is now only a concrete shell, the mayor pro tem, Melodee Colbert-Kean, said that officials understood the need to be careful about how fast they moved forward. In addition to the considerable logistical challenges, there are the emotional considerations imbued in the splintered lumber, crushed brick and strewn personal possessions — as well as the remains of the missing.
“To a lot of people, it’s just rubble,” she said. “But to a whole bunch more, it’s lives.”
That rubble was once assembled neatly into more than 5,000 buildings stretching through nearly a third of the city. Now it is where at least 125 people died, the most in a single tornado since modern record-keeping began in the United States in 1950. It is a rolling junkyard presided over by the jagged forms of denuded trees. The mess revealed a prosthetic leg, a college thesis, a live guinea pig, an empty wheelchair, a pocket watch, and a child’s doll.
Still, even residents of the hardest-hit area seemed to carry a gloomy resignation about what was surely ahead. “What else can you do but bulldoze it?” said Anna Kent, 54, as she wandered through rubble that once was a friend’s home in search of missing items. “They ought to draw a perimeter around all of it and take it all. What else can you do?”
After days exposed to the constant rain, these piles already smelled of mold. Nails and other sharp objects tore through tires and shoes alike. Even so, residents continued to stay in the damaged area, along with looters seeking both precious and scrap metal, and gawkers who have slowed emergency vehicles by creating traffic jams.
No new bodies or survivors were found Wednesday after the debris was searched a third time, said Mark Rohr, the city manager. City officials said that local leaders were already talking to the Army Corps of Engineers coming into the area to clear it of the wreckage, though it remained unclear where such a massive amount of material would go. Gov. Jay Nixon of Missouri said he waived certain restrictions to speed the clean-up effort.
As they talk of tearing down they are also discussing efforts to rebuild the area, with City Council members even discussing whether to change the zoning in certain areas to better reflect the development of this mostly blue-collar city of 49,000 in southwest Missouri. “We’re getting ready to have some lengthy City Council meetings,” said Gary Shaw, a city councilor and former mayor.
For many residents, imagining a rebuilt Joplin was too much, too fast. Yes, they said, Joplin will surely remake itself and people will build new homes and businesses. But, at the moment, the thought of a reshaped city felt faraway, said Kenny McGoyne, who was trying to find what was left of the bunk beds and chairs beneath his crumbled business, Kenny’s Used Furniture Emporium. “In a way, the place is already bulldozed,” he said. “I don’t know where we’ll go.”
Meanwhile, city officials were trying to find ways to manage access to the destroyed area. Law enforcement officials were posted at major intersections to keep people from entering, an effort that leaders said was aimed at preventing looting and gawking. A curfew was also put into effect restricting access after dark.
Monica Davey contributed reporting.