Tornado tears across Mississippi, more than two dozen dead

SILVER CITY Mississippi (Reuters) - Rescuers combed through rubble on Saturday after a powerful storm tore across Mississippi late on Friday, killing at least 25 people there and one person in Alabama as it leveled hundreds of buildings and spawned at least one devastating tornado.

The tornado stayed on the ground for about an hour and cut a path of destruction some 170 miles (274 km) long, according to Nicholas Price, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Jackson, Mississippi.

President Joe Biden ordered federal aid to supplement state, tribal and local recovery efforts in the affected areas, a White House statement said. The funding will be available to affected people in Carroll, Humphreys, Monroe, and Sharkey counties.

In Rolling Fork, a town of around 1,900 in western Mississippi that was hit the hardest, homes were reduced to rubble, tree trunks snapped like twigs and cars were tossed aside like toys. The town’s water tower lay twisted on the ground.

Michael Searcy, a storm chaser who saw the tornado approach Rolling Fork, spent hours helping to rescue trapped people.

“As soon as we would go from one vehicle to the next vehicle or from building to building, we could hear screams and we could hear cries for help,” he told Reuters. “And we were just basically in small groups, digging through the rubble, trying to find and extricate people.”

Members of one family narrowly escaped by taking shelter in a bathroom; the rest of the house collapsed around them, and the high winds dropped a van on top of the home, Searcy said.

In Silver City, a rural community of around 300, residents described locking themselves in interior rooms and cowering inside bathtubs as the tornado swept through.

“I thought about God,” said Katherine Ray. “I just started saying, ‘I followed the Ten Commandments, Lord, it’s just me at the house,’ and I just said, ‘Just take care of me.’”