The powerful weather system, accompanied by thunderstorms and driving rain, cut a path of more than 100 miles across the state late Friday, slamming several towns along the way.
In Rolling Fork, home to fewer than 2,000 people, an entire row of houses and buildings was demolished, leaving only scattered debris. Cars were overturned, fences ripped up and trees uprooted. Patricia Perkins, who works at a hardware store in Rolling Fork, told AFP that “most everything is wiped away.”
“My city is gone,” Rolling Fork Mayor Eldridge Walker told CNN. “Devastation — as I look from left to right, that’s all I see.“Houses that are torn up can be replaced but we can’t replace a life.”Search and rescue operations were underway in Sharkey County, home to Rolling Fork — about 60 miles northwest of the state capital Jackson — and neighboring counties.
President Joe Biden called the images from Mississippi “heartbreaking” and vowed to put federal resources at the state’s disposal. The National Weather Service issued a rare tornado emergency for Rolling Fork and surrounding areas at 9:00 pm Friday, warning people to seek shelter from life-threatening conditions and forecasting golf ball-sized hail.
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