At least 23 people were killed and dozens more injured after a deadly tornado tore through rural Mississippi late Friday, flattening homes and sending emergency responders to 911 to rescue people trapped in the destruction.
The Mississippi Emergency Management Agency said that in addition to the 23 dead, dozens of people were injured and at least four people were also missing.
“We have numerous state and local search and rescue teams continuing to work this morning,” the agency said in a statement. update posted on Twitter. “Unfortunately, these numbers are expected to change,” the agency added.
When dawn broke, emergency workers were just beginning to survey the damage. Just under 100,000 power customers in Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee were still without power early Saturday, with some of the hardest-hit counties going almost completely out of service, according to the tracking site. poweroutage.es.
Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves noted the death toll and asked for prayers.
“The loss will be felt in these towns forever,” he wrote. On twitter.
Three of the dead were from Carroll County, Mississippi, according to Mark Stiles, the local coroner.
“We are still doing searches and recoveries. We’re trying to cut down trees to get into where people live,” Stiles said.
The center of the destruction appeared to be about 60 miles away in the town of Rolling Fork in Sharkey County, Mississippi. The tornado blew out windows and damaged homes and trees, Fred Miller, the city’s former mayor, said Friday.
“Much of the city has been destroyed,” including all the businesses on a commercial and retail stretch of a local highway, Miller said. in an interview on Fox Weather.
Aaron Rigsby, videographer and storm chaser who filmed the tornadohe said in an interview that he had seen it develop from a “little cone” to a “massive wedge”.
After the tornado struck Rolling Fork, Rigsby said, he went door-to-door around the city, rescuing people who were trapped in their vehicles or in destroyed homes, including a woman who had been buried in rubble.
“The city took a direct hit,” he said, adding that it took at least 30 minutes for ambulances to get to Rolling Fork because the area is so rural.
Rolling Fork is a Mississippi Delta city of about 2,000 people in Sharkey County. It was the birthplace of the blues singer. murky waters and lies between the Mississippi and Yazoo rivers. Its residents live with the risk of flooding if the backwater levees along the Yazoo fail.
About 30 percent of residences in Sharkey County are mobile homes or dwellings that are not houses or apartments, according to a 2021 survey conducted by the federal Census Bureau. One fifth of the residents of Rolling Fork, which is predominantly black, are below the federal poverty line.
Many of the power outages in Mississippi early Saturday were in Sharkey and Montgomery counties. An officer who answered the phone at the Sharkey County Sheriff’s Office in Rolling Fork said there was no power in the building.
In addition to Rolling Fork, the tornado also caused damage to the Silver City, Mississippi, National Weather Service office in Jackson. said on Twitter.
The Weather Service had issued rare tornado emergencies for parts of the state Friday night, indicating a life-threatening situation, along with tornado warnings for parts of Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee that later expired. the agency forecast rain was expected in those three states by Saturday, with only a slight risk of more tornadoes.
Malary White, communications director for the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency, said late Friday that state search and rescue resources would be dispatched to Sharkey County. She said the agency was assessing the needs of those affected by the tornado and would begin surveying the damage in daylight, adding that the Federal Emergency Management Agency had been alerted.
The severe weather season in the south peaks during March, April, and May, meteorologists said. Earlier this month, powerful storms swept across the south, leaving at least 12 dead and hundreds of thousands of customers without power. Heavy rain, high winds and tornadoes damaged homes in at least eight states.
