ROTARY FORK, Miss. (AP) — A powerful tornado ripped through rural Mississippi and Alabama on Friday, killing at least seven people, destroying buildings and knocking out power as severe weather, producing golf ball-sized hail, swept through several states in south. and prompted authorities to warn some that they were in a “life-threatening situation”.
The National Weather Service confirmed that a tornado caused damage about 60 miles (96 kilometers) northeast of Jackson, Mississippi. The rural towns of Silver City and Rolling Fork were reporting destruction as the tornado continued to sweep northeast at 70 mph (113 km/h) without stopping, racing toward Alabama through towns including Winona and Amory into the night.
At least seven people were killed by the Mississippi tornado, Sharkey County Coroner Angelia Easton told ABC News. Rolling Fork is located in Sharkey County.
The National Weather Service issued a warning when the storm hit that didn’t mince words: “To protect your life, ACT NOW!”
“You are in a life-threatening situation,” he warned. “Flying debris can be deadly for trapped homeless people. Mobile homes will be destroyed. Considerable damage to homes, businesses and vehicles is likely, and complete destruction is possible.”
Cornel Knight told The Associated Press that he, his wife and their 3-year-old daughter were at a relative’s house in Rolling Fork when the tornado hit. He said the sky was dark, but “you could see the direction of every transformer blowing.”
She said it was “awfully quiet” when it happened. Knight said he watched from a doorway until the tornado was, he estimated, less than a mile away. Then he told everyone in the house to take cover in a corridor. He said the tornado hit another relative’s house across a large cornfield from where he lived. A wall in that house collapsed and trapped several people inside. When Knight spoke to the AP by phone, he said he could see the lights of emergency vehicles inside the partially collapsed home.
Rolling Fork Mayor Eldridge Walker told WLBT-TV that he was unable to get out of his damaged home shortly after the tornado because power lines were down. He said emergency personnel were trying to take the injured to hospitals. It was not immediately known how many people were injured.
A former Rolling Fork mayor, Fred Miller, told the station that a tornado blew through the back windows of his home.
Storm tracker Reed Timmer tweeted that Rolling Fork needed emergency personnel immediately and was en route with injured city residents to a hospital in Vicksburg.
Sharkey-Issaquena Community Hospital on the west side of Rolling Fork was damaged, WAPT reported.
The Sharkey County Sheriff’s Office in Rolling Fork reported gas leaks and people trapped in piles of debris, according to the Vicksburg News. Some law enforcement units went unnoticed by Sharkey, according to the newspaper.
Rolling Fork and the surrounding area have large areas of cotton, corn and soybean fields and catfish ponds. More than half a dozen shelters have been opened in the state by emergency officials.
Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves said in a Twitter post Friday that search and rescue teams were active and officials were sending more ambulances and emergency supplies to those affected.
“Many in Delta MS need your prayers and God’s protection tonight,” the post said. “Watch the weather reports and be careful all night, Mississippi!”
This was a supercell, the nasty type of storm that produces the deadliest tornado and most damaging hail in the United States, said Walker Ashley, a meteorology professor at Northern Illinois University. Plus, it’s humid at night, which is “the worst kind,” she said.
Forecasters saw a high tornado risk for the general region, not the specific area, a week earlier, said Ashley, who discussed it with her colleagues on March 17. a long-range alert for the area on March 19, he said.
Tornado experts like Ashley have warned of greater risk exposure in the region from people building more.
“Combine a particularly socioeconomically vulnerable landscape with a long-lasting, fast-moving nighttime tornado, and disaster is bound to happen,” Ashley said in an email.
A car was stolen and two passengers drowned in southwest Missouri Friday morning during torrential rains that were part of severe weather. Authorities said six young adults were in the vehicle that was trapped as the car tried to cross a bridge over a flooded creek in the town of Grovespring.
Four of the six managed to get out of the water. The body of Devon Holt, 20, of Grovespring, was found at 3:30 a.m., and the body of Alexander Roman-Ranelli, 19, of Springfield, was recovered about six hours later, Sgt. said Thomas Young.
The driver told authorities the rain made it difficult to see that water from a creek had covered the bridge, Young said.
Meanwhile, the search continued in another southwest Missouri county for a woman who was reported missing after flash floods from a small river swept a car off the road. The Logan Rogersville Fire District said there was no sign of the woman. Two others who were in the car were rescued. Crews planned to use boats and search the riverbank.
When a woman’s SUV was swept away by floodwaters Friday morning near Granby, Missouri, Layton Hoyer waded through the icy waters to save her.
Parts of southern Missouri saw nearly 8 inches of rain Thursday night and Friday morning as severe weather hit other areas. A suspected tornado touched down in North Texas on Friday morning.
Matt Elliott, weather alert coordinator at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma, said severe weather is in the forecast for several states.
The Storm Prediction Center warned that the greatest tornado threat would come across parts of Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee. Storms with damaging winds and hail were forecast from eastern Texas and southeastern Oklahoma to parts of southeastern Missouri and southern Illinois.
More than 49,000 customers had lost power in Arkansas, Mississippi and Tennessee by Friday evening, according to poweroutage.us.
In Texas, a suspected tornado touched down around 5 a.m. in the southwest corner of Wise County, destroying homes and downing trees and power lines, said Cody Powell, the county’s emergency management coordinator. Powell said no injuries were reported.
The Weather Service has not confirmed a tornado, but damage to homes was also reported in nearby Parker County, meteorologist Matt Stalley said.
Associated Press writers Emily Wagster Pettus in Jackson, Mississippi, Jim Salter in O’Fallon, Missouri, Lisa Baumann in Bellingham, Washington, Robert Jablon in Los Angeles and Jackie Quinn in Washington, DC contributed to this report.
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