100 mile tornado touches down in North Mississippi - at least 3 dead, 40 injuries, widespread damage
Daily Journal
TUPELO, MS
At least three people were killed in Northeast Mississippi, as powerful tornadoes swept through the region two days before Christmas.
Two people died in Benton County, according to Benton County Emergency Management. A 7 year old was also killed in Holly Springs.
In Benton County, there were about five confirmed injuries, and search and rescue operations were ongoing late Wednesday night for several missing persons. Several homes also were damaged.
Stan Dorroh | North Mississippi Storm Chasers
A tornado touches down in Marks on Wednesday. The National Weather Service said 14 tornadoes touched down throughout the state.
The Mississippi Emergency Management Agency is reporting 40 injuries statewide.
“Deborah and I are deeply saddened to hear of the lives that were lost during today’s tornado outbreak,” Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant said in a statement. “I ask that Mississippians keep the numerous families affected by these storms in their thoughts and prayers during the holiday season. I am in contact with the Mississippi Emergency
Management Agency and the Mississippi Department of Public Safety coordinating disaster response to ensure the areas in immediate need are receiving any and all state resources that can assist them during this time.”
Storm Prediction Center meteorologist Matt Mosier says a preliminary report shows there were 14 tornadoes that touched down in Mississippi on Wednesday.
Mosier says one tornado raced for more than half an hour for about 100 miles. He says it went from the Mississippi River to the northern part of the state including Holly Springs and eventually crossed the border of southwest Tennessee.
Mosier says three other tornados touched down at the same time in northern Mississippi.
Meanwhile, a tree blew over onto a house in Arkansas, killing an 18-year-old woman and trapping a 1 year old inside, authorities said. Rescuers pulled the toddler safely from the home.
In Mississippi, the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency confirmed damage in at least Benton, Coahoma, Marshall, Panola, Quitman and Tippah counties.
In Benton, that included cars damaged along Mississippi Highway 5 near the town of Ashland. In Marshall, it included homes damaged and power lines down near Mississippi Highway 4 and Mississippi Highway 7 near Holly Springs. There also were reports of Tippah County damage near the Brownsville community.
There was heavy damage at Three Forks in Walnut in Tippah County. A mobile home was knocked upside down and flipped off its foundation. The fire department was totally destroyed, with debris covering trucks still parked there. The Southern Sentinel’s Kedrick Storey reported trees down everywhere and the sound of saws cutting through them late Wednesday.
Three Forks Fire Chief Joey Jackson said the department has checked about 95 percent of the houses and everyone was accounted for, with a lot of people having cuts and scratches. The department will re-check in the morning.
On County Road 110, three homes were completely destroyed, and on County Road 112, about 15 homes either had some damage or were completely destroyed. Places were set up at Harmony Baptist Church and Mount Hebron Baptist Church for those needing assistance.
Half of the power grid in New Albany was out Wednesday evening, according to Bill Mattox, manager of New Albany Light, Gas and Water. It was restored later Wednesday night.
The outage included two substations because they are tied to the Tennessee Valley Authority feeder out of Holly Springs. That feeder was hit by the tornado that ripped through Holly Springs.
The State Emergency Operations Center has been partially activated with key agencies to assist with the response.
Courtesy of the National Weather Service
A preliminary damage track from the exceptionally long-track, violent tornado today.
In Como, Frances May said the storm didn’t seem violent when it passed a couple of miles from her home, yet she later saw the remains of three or four homes that were destroyed.
“There are some houses that were blown away,” said May, who runs the Como Inn. “They were brick houses on a slab. The roofs came off and most of the walls are gone.”
The damage was very isolated, she said: Diners were still eating at a downtown steakhouse in the tiny town just a few miles from the devastation.
In northwest Mississippi, a tornado damaged or destroyed at least 20 homes. Clarksdale Mayor Bill Luckett said the only confirmed casualty was a dog killed by storm debris. Planes at a small airport overturned and an unknown number of people were injured.
“I’m looking at some horrific damage right now,” the mayor said. “Sheet metal is wrapped around trees; there are overturned airplanes; a building is just destroyed.”
Television images showed the tornado appeared to be on the ground for more than 10 minutes. Interstate 55 was closed in both directions as the tornado approached, the Mississippi Highway Patrol said.
After an EF-1 tornado struck the south Indianapolis suburb of Greenwood, television stations showed pictures of damage including a portion of a roof blown off a veterinary office.
The biggest threat for tornadoes was in a region of 3.7 million people in Mississippi, Tennessee and Arkansas and parts of Missouri, Illinois and Kentucky, according to the national Storm Prediction Center in Oklahoma. The center issued a “particularly dangerous situation” alert for the first time since June 2014, when two massive EF4 twisters devastated a rural Nebraska town, killing two people.
Brandi Holland, a convenience store clerk in Tupelo said people were reminded of a tornado that damaged or destroyed more than 2,000 homes and businesses in April 2014.
“They’re opening all our tornado shelters because they say there’s an 80 percent chance of a tornado today,” Holland said.
Elsewhere, skiers on the slopes out West got a fresh taste of powder and most people in the Northeast enjoyed spring-like temperatures as they finished up last-minute Christmas shopping.
“It’s too warm for me. I don’t like it. I prefer the cold in the winter, in December. Gives you more of that Christmas feel,” said Daniel Flores, a concierge from the Bronx, his light jacket zipped open as he shopped in Manhattan with his three children.
Only about half of the nation, mostly in the West, should expect the possibility of a white Christmas.
In the small coastal town of Loxley, Alabama, Mandy Wilson watched the angry gray sky and told drivers to be careful as she worked a cash register at Love’s Travel Stop.
“It’s very ugly; it’s very scary,” Wilson said. “There’s an 18-wheeler turned over on I-10. There’s water standing really bad. It’s a really interesting way to spend Christmas Eve eve.”
The threat of severe weather just before Christmas is unusual, but not unprecedented, said Greg Carbin, a meteorologist at the national Storm Prediction Center.
Twisters hit southeast Mississippi exactly a year ago, killing five people and injuring dozens of others. On Christmas Day in 2012, a storm system spawned several tornadoes, damaging homes from Texas to Alabama.
Emergency officials in Tennessee worried that powerful winds could turn holiday yard decorations into projectiles, the same way gusts can fling patio furniture in springtime storms, said Marty Clements, director of the Madison County Emergency Management Agency in Jackson, the state’s largest city between Memphis and Nashville.
“If you go through these neighborhoods, there are a lot of people very proud of what they’ve put out and they’ve got stuff everywhere — all these ornaments and deer and everything else,” Clements said. “They’re not manufactured to withstand that kind of wind speed, so they become almost like little missiles.”
Two tornadoes hit central Louisiana on Monday, injuring a man whose travel trailer flipped over. The Lake Charles office of the National Weather service said both were EF-1 twisters with peak winds of 95 mph. The tornadoes uprooted trees, damaged homes and cars.
In Arkansas, Pope County Sheriff Shane Jones said the 18-year-old woman was killed when a tree crashed into her bedroom. The woman and her 1 1/2-year-old sister were sleeping in a bedroom of the house near Atkins about 65 miles northwest of Little Rock, when winds uprooted the tree that crashed through the roof.
“It’s terrible that this happened, especially at Christmas,” Jones said.
Once the strong storms clear out, warm temperatures were expected. Highs in Atlanta and Charlotte, North Carolina, on Christmas Eve were forecast to be in the mid-70s.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
Link below to photos: