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At least 26 dead as destructive tornadoes batter Mississippi and Alabama
Updated 18:23, 26-Mar-2023
CGTN

At least 26 people were killed, including 25 in Mississippi and one person in Alabama, after tornadoes touched down the two U.S. states late Friday.

Earlier in the day, Governor Tate Reeves issued a State of Emergency for all affected counties.

The tornado devastated a swath of the Mississippi Delta town of Rolling Fork, reducing homes to piles of rubble, flipping cars on their sides and toppling the town's water tower. Residents hunkered down in bath tubs and hallways during Friday night's storm and later broke into a John Deere store that they converted into a triage center for the wounded.

Based on early data, the tornado received a preliminary EF-4 rating, the National Weather Service office in Jackson said late Saturday in a tweet. An EF-4 tornado has top wind gusts between 265 and 320 kilometers per hour, according to the service. The Jackson office cautioned it was still gathering information on the tornado.

A man sits amongst damage from a series of powerful storms and at least one tornado in Rolling Fork, Mississippi, March 25, 2023. /CFP
A man sits amongst damage from a series of powerful storms and at least one tornado in Rolling Fork, Mississippi, March 25, 2023. /CFP

A man sits amongst damage from a series of powerful storms and at least one tornado in Rolling Fork, Mississippi, March 25, 2023. /CFP

The damage in Rolling Fork was so widespread that several storm chasers - who follow severe weather and often put up livestreams showing dramatic funnel clouds - pleaded for search and rescue help. Others abandoned the chase to drive injured people to the hospital.

Edgar O'Neal, a storm chaser who was on the ground in Rolling Fork, said the tornado caused "complete and utter devastation."

Jourdan Hartshorn, Mississippi coordinator for the United Cajun Navy, told ABC News the devastation in Rolling Fork reminded him of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, saying most of the buildings were damaged or destroyed, apart from some facilities on the outskirts of town.

Throughout Saturday, survivors walked around dazed and in shock as they broke through debris and fallen trees with chain saws, searching for survivors. Power lines were pinned under decades-old oaks, their roots torn from the ground.

A shot of damaged truck after a tornado tore through Mississippi, March 25, 2023. /CFP
A shot of damaged truck after a tornado tore through Mississippi, March 25, 2023. /CFP

A shot of damaged truck after a tornado tore through Mississippi, March 25, 2023. /CFP

Preliminary information based on estimates from storm reports, and radar data indicate that the tornado was on the ground for more than an hour and traversed at least 274 kilometers, said Lance Perrilloux, a meteorologist with the weather service's Jackson, Mississippi, office.

"That's rare - very, very rare," he said, attributing the long path to widespread atmospheric instability. "All the ingredients were there."

Perrilloux said preliminary findings are that the tornado began its path of destruction just southwest of Rolling Fork before continuing northeast toward the rural communities of Midnight and Silver City, then moving toward Tchula, Black Hawk and Winona.

The supercell that produced the deadly twister also appeared to produce tornadoes that caused damage in northwest and north-central Alabama, said Brian Squitieri, a severe storms forecaster with the weather service's Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma.

Despite the damage, there were signs of improvement. Power outages, which at one point were affecting more than 75,000 customers in Tennessee, Mississippi and Alabama, had been cut by a third by mid-afternoon Saturday, according to poweroutage.us.

Meteorologists saw a big tornado risk coming for the general region as much as a week in advance, said Northern Illinois University meteorology professor Walker Ashley.

Tornado experts like Ashley have been warning about increased risk exposure in the region because of people building more.

"You mix a particularly socioeconomically vulnerable landscape with a fast-moving, long-track nocturnal tornado, and, disaster will happen," Ashley said in an email.

(Cover: The remains of a house and cars are entangled in tree limbs in Rolling Fork, Mississippi, March 25, 2023. /CFP)

Source(s): AP

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