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A powerful tornado ripped through the Deep South on Friday night, killing at least 23 people in Mississippi, obliterating dozens of buildings and leaving a particularly devastating mark on a rural town whose mayor declared, “The town is gone.”
The Mississippi Emergency Management Agency said in a Twitter post that search and rescue teams from local and state agencies were deployed to help victims affected by the tornado.
The agency confirmed early Saturday that 23 people were killed, four were missing and dozens were injured.
A few minutes later, the agency warned that the number of victims could be higher, tweeting: “Unfortunately, these figures are expected to change.”
Governor of Mississippi Tate Reeves tweeted that there is on the way to Sharkey County, whose county seat Rolling Folk was flattened. “Devastating damage – as everyone knows. This is a tragedy.”
The US National Weather Service confirmed the tornado caused damage about 96 kilometers northeast of Jackson, Miss.
The rural towns of Silver City and Rolling Fork reported damage as the tornado swept northeast at 113 km/h without weakening, racing into Alabama through towns, including Winona and Amory, into the night.
‘My city is lost’
Rolling Fork Mayor Eldridge Walker told CNN that his town was essentially trashed.
Video taken in broad daylight shows houses reduced to rubble, cars on their sides and trees uprooted. Sometimes, amidst the ruins, a house would survive, seemingly intact.
“My city is lost. But we are resilient and we will come back stronger,” he said.
The National Weather Service issued an alert Friday as the storm hit that said nothing: “To protect your life, TAKE COVER NOW!”
“You are in a life-threatening situation,” he warned. “Flying debris could kill those caught without shelter. Mobile homes will be destroyed. Extensive damage to homes, businesses, and vehicles is possible.”
Cornel Knight told The Associated Press that he, his wife and three-year-old daughter were at a relative’s house in Rolling Fork when the tornado struck.
The sky was dark but “you could see the direction of every transformer that blew,” Knight said, and it was “eerily quiet” as it happened.
He said the tornado hit another relative’s house in a large field from where he lived. A wall in the house collapsed and trapped several people inside.
‘Jesus, help them’
The tornado appeared so powerful on radar as it approached the town of Amory, about 40 kilometers southeast of Tupelo, that one Mississippi meteorologist paused to say a prayer after new radar information came in.
“Oh my gosh,” WTVA’s Matt Laubhan said live. “Lord Jesus, help them. Amen.”
The damage in Rolling Fork was so widespread that some storm chasers — who follow the severe weather and often make livestreams showing the dramatic funnel clouds — called for search and rescue help.
Others left the hunt to drive the wounded to the hospital themselves.
Sharkey-Issaquena Community Hospital west of Rolling Fork was damaged, WAPT reported.
The Sharkey County Sheriff’s Office in Rolling Fork reported a gas leak and people trapped under the rubble, according to the Vicksburg News. Several law enforcement units were not found in Sharkey, according to the newspaper.
Power outages in 3 countries
According to poweroutage.us, 40,000 customers were without power in Tennessee; 15,000 customers left without power in Mississippi; and 20,000 were without power in Alabama.
Rolling Fork and the surrounding area have fields of cotton, corn and soybeans and catfish farming ponds. More than half a dozen shelters were opened in the state by emergency officials.
Reeves, the governor of Mississippi, said in a Twitter post Friday night that search and rescue teams are active and officials are sending in more ambulances and emergency assets.
It was a supercell, the type of storm that produces the deadliest tornadoes and most damaging hail in the United States, said Northern Illinois University meteorology professor Walker Ashley.
What’s more, it’s nighttime, which is “the worst kind,” he said.
Tornado experts like Ashley have warned of an increased risk in the area as more people build up.
“You mix a socioeconomically vulnerable landscape with a fast-moving nocturnal tornado, and disaster ensues,” Ashley said in an email.
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