On Friday March 24 an EF-4 tornado hit Rolling Fork, Mississippi, devastating most of the Mississippi Delta town.
Although all residents of Rolling Fork were affected by the same tornado, they all lived unique experiences and continue to do so in their recovery. On Saturday March 25, The Daily Mississippian interviewed several survivors. Their stories are documented below.
Welcome to Rolling Fork.
SEVENTH STREET
To live on Seventh Street in Rolling Fork, Mississippi, was to exist in a snapshot of what home looks like for a lot of people in the Mississippi Delta. Situated on the edge of town, the street was a shared space, where kids fumbled their way from a tricycle to a bicycle, and where parents squinted into the sunlight to wave at their neighbors across the street.
From the end of the driveways, one can see the rows of terraced fields that draw your eyes to the horizon, where the sun rises and sets in an exceptional technicolor display.
Today, those driveways lead not to cherished homes but to piles of rubble. Seventh Street residents — like many Rolling Fork residents — spent Saturday morning sifting through mounds of wood and insulation for what little of their material lives remained.
The last street in Rolling Fork, they were the first to be hit by the catastrophic tornado that ripped through nearly 100 miles of western and central Mississippi, killing 18 in Rolling Fork and 26 across Mississippi and Alabama.
Garrett Miles, a Seventh Street resident, remarked that he had long suspected a day like this would come — but never imagined anything quite like what he experienced on Friday night.
“It happened so quickly. When I say seconds, I mean seconds,” he said.
Miles was sitting in front of his television as newscasters and sources on his phone warned of an approaching storm. When it became evident that his home was in the immediate path of destruction, he made his way to his bathtub where he weathered the tornado.
“I heard it going over my head. The wind was blowing, everything hitting my face and my eyes. The roof fell in but stopped just over my head,” he said.
Miles was trapped for about 30 minutes after the tornado passed. Then he checked on his neighbors. Some were fine, but others, he would soon discover, perished in the storm. His immediate neighbors died after their home was crushed by an 18-wheeler that the tornado carried and deposited on top of their home.
“A disaster like this, you’ve just gotta pray,” he said.
Roughly four blocks away from Miles’ home and Seventh Street, Diane McDaniel, a 30-year resident of Rolling Fork, was fresh off of a shift at the local hospital at 7 p.m. when inclement weather began to descend on the town.
“I guess it was 8:05, 8:10 when I started hearing stuff that sounded like hail. And I thought it was hail until it started hitting me in the back of the head and I realized it was glass blowing out of all the windows in the house,” she said.
McDaniel described two or three minutes
of crashing and noise before it was “ just gone.” When the storm was over, her husband remarked that he hoped the truck parked outside of their house was okay. When day broke, they found that same truck on top of a house across the street.
Compared to the homes on Seventh Street which were essentially flattened, the damage the McDaniel house experienced was relatively minor. Parts of the roof caved, leading to water and debris finding their way into the home. The overall structure, though, remained standing.
“I’m 62 years old, and I thought I had lived through a lot. But I’m beginning to think I hadn’t until today,” she said. “But I’m just blessed to have lived through it because there are people down the road that did not make it. If insurance doesn’t total the house, we’re going to rebuild right here because this is where we’re happy.”
Although many residents like McDaniel plan to rebuild and remain where they are, Miles is not one of them. This is not the first disaster he has survived — a fire took his home several years earlier, and just as he did then, he plans to relocate and plant his roots elsewhere, for concern that something like this could easily happen again.
“When my other house burned down, we bought this one. But here, there’s no skipping the impact of the storm,” he said.
Miles was surrounded by friends and family, there to offer support and sift through the rubble of his home. In passing, one of them remarked: “We’re going to be alright. I guarantee you. I guarantee you.”
THE DORSEYS
Jeanette Dorsey had not been home 10 minutes when the tornado struck in a chaotic medley of smashing glass, tightly clenched hands and uncertainty.
“My mom said, ‘Do you hear that? Take cover.’ We all got in the hallway, and Lord we just hear it, all of it: We can hear the shattering glass going through the house, debris all in your mouth and hair, everywhere. Lord Jesus. We just thank God that he spared us,” Dorsey said.
The house the Dorseys had moved into not three years prior was reduced to rubble, their car a mess of storm-soaked seating and wind-blown debris.
Loss dripped from her words as she looked upon the devastation and said, “This was our home. We moved from another part of Rolling Fork and decided to purchase this home. It was our home.”
And yet, despite the destruction, Dorsey thanked God.
“All of this — we can get that back, but our life? We can not retrieve that, so we thank God so much that we have family.”
Dorsey, who turned 57 just two days after the tornado struck, remembers vividly sitting in the hallway and weathering the tornado with her son, Jesse, and mother, Emma Jean.
“We just stayed in cover, he (Jesse) was in between my mom and myself, and through it all God kept us. It was very, very scary. I never witnessed this before.”
Jesse, 23, remembers feeling afraid for his grandma while he clutched her hand tightly.
“I was scared, because I thought I was going to lose my grandma. The only thing I could say was, ‘Granny, granny, granny!’ I was holding my mama, too, and holding my grandma’s hand,” he said.
Beyond his immediate mortal fear, Jesse described feeling the full force of God’s power.
“God was trying to speak to us, to tell us no matter how we build the house, he can easily take it away,” he said.
Jeanette Dorsey recalled the moment when the storm finally yielded.
“When the storm had passed, my mom said, ‘It’s over.’ All we could do, all three of us, was lift our hands and give God praise because we know without a doubt that he is solid, and he kept us together,” Jeannette said.
Emma Jean is 82 years old and broke her leg when the tornado ripped through the house. Jesse, as well as his two uncles, picked her up in a chair and rescued her from the wreckage.
“She was shaken up by it,” Jesse said.
Emma Jean is receiving treatment for her broken leg in a hospital in Vicksburg. Luckily, the rest of the Dorseys survived the tornado unscathed.
“God spared her through all of this,” Jeanette said. “She’s a strong woman. She’s 82, but she’s a strong woman.”
While the Dorseys thanked God for their lives, they gave condolences for other residents of Rolling Fork that were not so fortunate.
“God spared us, and for the families that lost a loved one, we keep them in our heart as well, because we are a small community. We go to church together, we work in the same school district — we’re a big family here, so we’re looking out for each other,” Jeanette said.
Some of Jeanette’s co-workers at the local elementary school, or people close to them, died in the storm..
“One of my coworkers lost her life. She was the cafeteria manager at South Delta Elementary. And another co-worker lost her mom,” she said.
Jeanette’s words trailed off, the death in her community clearly weighing on her.
“I haven’t been talking with anybody else too much because we’ve been trying to handle our own situation and personal lives,” she said.
Jesse, who worked at the local Stop and Shop, also had someone that he worked with lose her life. They had closed the shop together shortly before the storm.
“She made another stop, but we came directly home. It was nothing nice. Nothing nice.” Jeanette said.
Now, the Dorseys are staying with family in Vicksburg. Their home is insured, adding to Dorsey’s relief that only material goods were lost in the tornado.
“Right now, we’re living in Vicksburg with my sister. We’re just gonna wait it out, wait it out and wait on God,” she said. “Thank God, his grace God is just who he says he is.”
THE BARLOWS
Kathy Barlow spent years collecting pieces for her ceramic snow village.
Figurines of children ice skating and playing in the snow. Tiny green Christmas trees with multi-colored lights and a shining star on top. Eclectic houses and downtown shops with snow-covered rooftops.
Barlow usually pulls the tubs that contain her collection out of her storage closet in December, but this year, she pulled them out in March. Not because Christmas came early, but to save them from the rubble that was once her home.
A member of a community that once resembled her quaint snow village, she is now among the many people left picking up the pieces.
Although the Barlows knew that bad weather was coming, the tornado came as a surprise, leaving them with little time to shelter
Mike Barlow just returned from picking up food and was watching the news when he heard the mention of a tornado in the storm.
“Mike hollered in the living room and said, ‘Y’all better get off the phone and take shelter. It’s coming,’” Kathy said. “We got in the hall and closed all the doors surrounding us because the hall is in the center of the house. We were barely situated for about 30 seconds when it started.”
Kathy talked about the bone-chilling noise.
“We just started hearing things hitting the house, we looked at each other and the noise got louder and louder.”
To get through the storm itself, the Barlows did two things: held on tight and prayed to God.
“We just grabbed each other and ducked our heads, put our hands over our heads and waited hoping we weren’t gonna be sucked out,” Kathy said.
After the tornado, reaching out to and comforting loved ones was the first priority for many residents.
“I was on the phone with my daughter (before the storm) and she called me at 8:07 p.m. and said, ‘Mama it hit us.’ I said baby it hit us too and we’re gonna get to you as soon as we can,” Kathy said.
To get out of their house and to their family, the Barlows had to climb out of a crack near their fireplace.
“We climbed up on the hearth and stepped over. Of course, it was pouring down rain and we were getting soaked,” Kathy said.
Thankfully, the Barlows’ family was okay.
Although the Barlows are past the initial shock, the next difficult stage has involved grappling with loss and picking up the pieces.
After a night without sleep, the Barlows went back to their house early the next morning to salvage what they could.
“We were over here at two o’clock in the morning pilfering through trying to find things and finally went back to my daughter’s house that lives that way,” Kathy said. “I tried to sleep but I couldn’t, so daylight we were up and going again and we’re going to see what we can salvage from our house.”
Kathy gave an intimate tour of her house that sustained severe damage.
Although parts like the kitchen and closets are still standing, the roof of the living room caved in, a tree crashed through the master bedroom and Kathy’s vehicle was totaled.
“We do want to salvage special things, but with things in the attic, we’re not even going up there. We don’t know what shape that is and we don’t want to chance all this falling in on us.”
But the Barlows were far from alone in the aftermath. Not only did the community come together, but their family came to help.
Renita and Eddie Woods of the Gulf Coast came to help not only the Barlows but also multiple family members in the area.
“This is a strong little community,” Renita said. “As you can see, different people all have trouble at their own places or with their own families, but they all pull together. They’re cooking in different locations and bringing food, water and whatever to just try to help each other.”
In addition, the Barlows have a place to stay thanks to their family.
“They have some other family members that didn’t get hit as hard that they’ll be able to go and stay with, so that’s a good thing,” Renita said.
Renita Woods was very positive about the recovery of the town.
“This community is very, very resilient,” Renita said. “They’ve got a lot to come back from, but I’ve seen communities come back from worse in my time.”
Others are more skeptical.
Tony Johnson, the facility maintenance manager at a Double Quick that was destroyed by the tornado, discussed the already existing issue of population decline in Delta towns and how Rolling Fork might be affected after the tornado.
“All your small little Delta towns, every year you’re losing population,” Johnson said. “It’s simply because things are drying up. I hate to say that, but it’s a fact. This town is a cotton farming town and a lot of these older farmers, they may just take the insurance and move on.”
Johnson has seen this happen after major natural disasters in the region before.
“I’ve been through two of these, and it takes a while,” Johnson said. “When you have this much damage as this town’s got it’s going to take a little while to come back. My thinking is five years before it’s anywhere close to being full capacity. I remember the tornado that hit Inverness when I was a young kid in school. It was bad like this and it never recovered.”
Johnson is referring to the Mississippi Delta outbreak of 1971, when multiple tornadoes formed from two days of severe weather. It left in its wake 123 people dead in three states and multiple Mississippi Delta communities, including Inverness, irreparably damaged.
Despite this possibility and everything they had been through, the Barlows had an unwavering tone of resilience and positivity.
With more fascination than sadness Mike made a special point to show The Daily Mississippian reporter a deer antler that the wind drove through the windshield of his truck. He also offered the reporter a beer with a smile. The reporter politely declined.
Throughout her interview, Kathy saved her goldfish from her decimated pond, pointed out delicate birds’ nests that miraculously weathered the storm and rummaged through books that had gotten lost in the rubble.
At one point she found a book entitled “Jesus Calling,” held it up and promptly said, “Of course, I have to keep this one.”
It also happened to be Kathy’s birthday. When asked about the future, she spoke of celebration.
“We’re just taking it one moment at a time to be honest,” she said. “But today, we’re celebrating life.”
