Jan Wesner Childs
Published: April 16, 2020
The long process of healing and rebuilding is underway after storms and dozens of tornadoes slashed a deadly and destructive path across the South, killing at least 37 people and flattening hundreds of homes and businesses in several states.
"This storm was as bad or worse than anything we've seen in a decade," Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves said on Monday. "We are used to tornadoes in Mississippi. No one is used to this."
Fourteen people died in his state. Nine people were killed in South Carolina, eight in Georgia, four in Tennessee, one in North Carolina and one in Arkansas.
The latest deaths were announced Thursday by the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency, which said there was one additional death each in Walthall County and Jones County. On Wednesday, the Chattanooga Fire Department said a four-year-old boy died from injuries sustained in a tornado on Sunday.
At least 107 tornadoes had been confirmed in 10 states as of Thursday afternoon. The severe weather started on Easter Sunday and continued into Monday from Texas and Arkansas, across Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia and into the Carolinas and Tennessee.
Overall, more than 1 million lost power during the storms.
A tornado survivor who was thrown out the window of his mobile home looks at cuts on his arm as he stands near his destroyed mobile home, Monday, April 13, 2020, in Chatsworth, Georgia.
Among the many stories of survival was Michael Brehn who was sucked out of a mobile home in Chatsworth, Georgia.
"It was crazy," Brehn told The Weather Channel as he stood in front of his destroyed home. "It just out of nowhere bounced us up in the air and then it fell right back down and that’s where the house starting flipping over. From there, that’s where I flew out the window."
He woke up in the grass a few minutes later.
In Laurel, Mississippi, Andrew Phillips and his family lost everything but escaped injury as a tornado ripped apart their home around them. Phillips, his wife and two children had just bought the house two months ago. One of the selling points was a concrete tornado safe room inside.
"I was in the room maybe 20 seconds when it started and all I could do was just hunker down and push down on my wife and my kids," Phillips told weather.com. "I’ve got a two year old and a six month old. Halfway through it I looked up and I seen that our house was gone. The sand, the dirt started hitting us, covering us, and I just kept pushing down on my kids praying that we’d come out alive."
A post shared on social media indicated that one family's photo was carried 121 miles away from their home that was destroyed in Moss, Mississippi.
This picture has been identified. It was lofted by an EF-4 at Moss, Mississippi. Traveled 121 miles to Tuscaloosa County Alabama. One of those that lived in the home is in critical condition.
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One resident near Bassfield, Mississippi, which sustained heavy damage, described what happened as a tornado bore down and destroyed most of her family's home.
"We ran into the house and everybody took shelter," Jalissa Mikell told the Clarion-Ledger. "Everybody was in the hallway and closets. It really sounded like an explosion. The front door was the first thing to fall off and the windows all busted. Then the insulation started attacking us. It was all in my mouth and nose."
She said the family was safe afterward, but "everybody was shook up and in shock."
A man in Chattanooga, Tennessee, told The Weather Channel he had fallen asleep in a chair watching TV before his home was flattened.
When asked how he survived, he said: “By the grace of god. Period. That’s it. When I looked up I felt the rain falling on me and I looked up and saw the sky."
The recovery effort was complicated by the coronavirus pandemic and efforts to maintain social distancing. But victims of the severe weather had bigger concerns on their minds.
“At this moment in time, you’re just trying to get yourself together and see where you’re going from here," the man in Chattanooga said.
The Weather Company’s primary journalistic mission is to report on breaking weather news, the environment and the importance of science to our lives. This story does not necessarily represent the position of our parent company, IBM.
The Weather Company’s primary journalistic mission is to report on breaking weather news, the environment and the importance of science to our lives. This story does not necessarily represent the position of our parent company, IBM.
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