At least three tornadoes rip across southwest Mississippi, damage about 500 homes
Powerful storms that included at least three tornadoes tore through several counties in southwest Mississippi on Wednesday night, injuring at least 17 people and damaging roughly 500 homes, Scott Simmons, a spokesperson for the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency, said Thursday.
Twelve of the injured were transported from the Wash Trailer Park in the small community of Bogue Chitto in Lincoln County, Simmons said. Video aired by WAPT-TV after sunrise showed mobile homes reduced to heaps of twisted metal and splintered boards, with one intact trailer flipped on its roof and several cars appearing to have been picked up by the storm.
Resident Max Mahaffey told WAPT-TV he was not injured but that his grandmother hurt her ankle and neighbors suffered cuts and bruises. “I was just watching TikTok on my bed and thought it was thunder,” Mahaffey said. “I went to my living room. I went back to my room, and the room’s gone,” the station reported.
“We know there were at least three tornadoes,” Daniel Lamb, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service office in Jackson, said Thursday. He said the same storm produced at least two tornadoes from Franklin and Lincoln into Lawrence counties, and another from Lamar possibly into Forest County, and that there may have been more confirmed after radar review and ground surveys.
Gov. Tate Reeves posted online, “Pray for Mississippi,” and said the state Emergency Management Agency was coordinating response efforts. Reeves said a volunteer rescue group was providing a 50-person shelter pod, a high-powered generator and 10 pallets of supplies to Lincoln County, which reported at least 200 damaged homes. The state agency said Lamar County reported about 275 homes damaged and Lawrence County reported about 10 to 12 homes damaged, and warned residents to avoid sightseeing while crews work.
The National Weather Service said more storms were expected Thursday with the possibility of tornadoes across parts of Alabama, Georgia and Florida, and that strong storms were possible for parts of the Carolinas and Texas.
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