‘Is God mad?’ Tornado tears into Mississippi, killing four
HATTIESBURG, Miss. — Rain was pouring down in the predawn darkness, and the wind was picking up as Darryl McMorris ran for his daughters’ bedroom.
The windows started blowing out as he dove on top of his girls, grabbing one under each arm as he tried to protect them.
“As soon as I did that, it seemed like we were flying in the air,” he said Saturday
Walls collapsed and the house blew apart as his daughters screamed. But he held on tight.
When the tornado finished ripping its way through their Hattiesburg home, he and the two girls were under a wall. Their house appears to be a total loss, bedding tossed 50 feet into a tree and their oldest daughter asking, “Is God mad at us?” But they’re alive.
“I don’t see how we survived this,” his fiancée, Shanise, said.
Across the tornado’s devastating path, families were taking stock of the damage, hugging friends and neighbors, grieving over the remains of their homes and in many cases mourning those killed.
Authorities said four people died when the twister touched down around 3:35 a.m. Saturday.
Shannon Hefferan, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, says damage reports indicate it touched down in Lamar County before rip- ping into Forrest County and skirting just south of downtown Hattiesburg — the state’s fourth-largest city
The tornado continued across the Leaf River into neighboring Petal. Emergency management officials said the severe weather also damaged Perry and Jones counties.
Teams are assessing the damage. They know the tornado was accompanied by a deluge of rain — 3.42 inches over a six- to seven-hour period Saturday morning — Hefferan said.
And the bad weather isn’t over. The weather service anticipated another round Saturday night. A tornado watch was in effect until 9 p.m. in parts of southeastern Louisiana and southern Mississippi, warning that hail, gusting winds and tornadoes were possible.
Forrest County Coroner Butch Benedict on Saturday afternoon released the names of the dead: Earnest Perkins, 58; Cleveland Madison, 20; David Wayne McCoy, 47; and Simona Cox, 72.
Monica McCarty lost her father — Perkins — who died in the same trailer park where she and her boyfriend live and her son — Madison — who was apparently crushed to death while in bed at her mother’s house where he lived.
Standing. amid the tornado’s carnage, McCarty wept as her boyfriend, Tackeem Molley, comforted her.
“They couldn’t get him out of the house. They said he was lying in the bed,” McCarty said of her son.