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Thursday, May 29, 2025

Mississippi tornado recovery tough for low-income residents

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793 days ago
20230327
Damage is visible Sunday, March 26, 2023, in Rolling Fork, Miss., after a tornado ripped through the community. Emergency officials in Mississippi say several people have been killed by tornadoes that tore through the state on Friday night, destroying buildings and knocking out power as severe weather produced hail the size of golf balls moved through several southern states. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

Damage is visible Sunday, March 26, 2023, in Rolling Fork, Miss., after a tornado ripped through the community. Emergency officials in Mississippi say several people have been killed by tornadoes that tore through the state on Friday night, destroying buildings and knocking out power as severe weather produced hail the size of golf balls moved through several southern states. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

A mas­sive tor­na­do oblit­er­at­ed the mod­est one-sto­ry home that Kim­ber­ly Berry shared with her two daugh­ters in the Mis­sis­sip­pi Delta flat­lands, leav­ing on­ly a foun­da­tion and some ran­dom be­long­ings — a top­pled re­frig­er­a­tor, a dress­er and match­ing night­stand, a bag of Christ­mas dec­o­ra­tions, some cloth­ing.

Dur­ing the storm Fri­day, Berry and her 12-year-old daugh­ter hud­dled and prayed at a near­by church that was bare­ly dam­aged, while her 25-year-old daugh­ter sur­vived in the hard-hit town of Rolling Fork, some 15 miles (24 kilo­me­tres) away.

Berry shook her head as she looked at the re­mains of their ma­te­r­i­al pos­ses­sions. She said she’s grate­ful she and her chil­dren are still alive.

“I can get all this back. It’s noth­ing,” said Berry, 46, who works as a su­per­vi­sor at a cat­fish grow­ing and pro­cess­ing op­er­a­tion. “I’m not go­ing to get de­pressed about it.”

Like many peo­ple in this eco­nom­i­cal­ly strug­gling area, she faces an un­cer­tain fu­ture. Mis­sis­sip­pi is one of the poor­est states in the U.S., and the ma­jor­i­ty-Black Delta has long been one of the poor­est parts of Mis­sis­sip­pi — a place where many peo­ple work pay check to pay check in jobs tied to agri­cul­ture.

Two of the coun­ties wal­loped by the tor­na­do, Sharkey and Humphreys, are among the most sparse­ly pop­u­lat­ed in the state, with on­ly a few thou­sand res­i­dents in com­mu­ni­ties scat­tered across wide ex­pans­es of cot­ton, corn and soy­bean fields.

Sharkey’s pover­ty rate is 35%, and Humphreys’ is 33%, com­pared to about 19% for Mis­sis­sip­pi and un­der 12% for the en­tire Unit­ed States.

“It’s go­ing to be a long road to re­cov­ery, try­ing to re­build and get over the dev­as­ta­tion,” Wayne Williams, who teach­es con­struc­tion skills at a vo­ca­tion­al ed­u­ca­tion cen­ter in Rolling Fork, said Sun­day as peo­ple across town ham­mered blue tarps on­to dam­aged roofs and used chain­saws to cut fall­en trees.

The tor­na­do killed 25 and in­jured dozens in Mis­sis­sip­pi. It de­stroyed many homes and busi­ness­es in Rolling Fork and the near­by town of Sil­ver City, leav­ing mounds of lum­ber, bricks and twist­ed met­al.

The lo­cal hous­ing stock was al­ready tight, and some who lost their homes said they will live with friends of rel­a­tives. Mis­sis­sip­pi opened more than a half-dozen shel­ters to tem­porar­i­ly house peo­ple dis­placed by the tor­na­do.

Pres­i­dent Joe Biden is­sued an emer­gency de­c­la­ra­tion for Mis­sis­sip­pi ear­ly Sun­day, mak­ing fed­er­al fund­ing avail­able to hard­est-hit ar­eas.

Berry spent the week­end with friends and fam­i­ly sort­ing through sal­vage­able items at her de­stroyed home near a two-lane high­way that tra­vers­es farm fields. She said she walked to the church be­fore the tor­na­do be­cause her sis­ter called her Fri­day night and fran­ti­cal­ly said TV weath­er fore­cast­ers had warned a po­ten­tial­ly dead­ly storm was head­ed her way. Berry said as the storm rum­bled and howled over­head, she tried to ig­nore the noise.

“That’s the on­ly thing that was stuck in my head was just to pray, pray and cry out to God,” she said Sat­ur­day. “I didn’t hear noth­ing but my own self pray­ing and God an­swer­ing my prayer. I mean, I can get an­oth­er house, an­oth­er fur­ni­ture. But lit­er­al­ly sav­ing my life — I’m thank­ful.”

Her sis­ter, Di­an­na Berry, said her own home a few miles away was un­dam­aged. She works at a deer camp, and she said her boss has of­fered to let Kim­ber­ly Berry and her daugh­ters live there for as long as they need. —ROLLING FORK, Miss. (AP)

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Sto­ry by EMI­LY WAG­STER PET­TUS | As­so­ci­at­ed Press


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