Mississippi survivors recall horror of tornado
STORY: Undre Williams says the tornado that flattened his Mississippi home only roared overhead for mere moments.
The storm that spawned it plowed through his town of Rolling Fork, among the hardest hit along a 170-mile path…killing at least 25 people in the state and one in Alabama.
Williams says he’ll never forget the sound of the tornado – and what he heard after.
"To hear that roaring--- those five, six seconds seemed like a lifetime, you know? And I just knew. I mean, I just can't describe the feeling of being... I can't get it out of my head. Every 45-50 minutes, it just come back to me."
"And I was able to grab a top of that tub and pull it down over my head so that the rain and lightning wouldn't strike me and 5 minutes later, it was over, and I realized that I was still here and all I could hear was a bunch of hollering and screaming. You know, we're here, help, help you know?"
Rolling Fork’s mayor Eldridge Walker told CNN on Saturday – that at least a dozen of the deaths happened in the town.
Resident Labryant T Knight says he survived, hidden in his mother’s home with her, his nephews and nieces as the windows blew out.
His neighborhood is gone.
"Yes, Yes. I actually was born on this street here, a few houses down. And I grew up over here where we're walking to. All of this was trailers, were houses. This was a store. This is the neighborhood laundromat. This is where people paid their bills. It used to be, we call it, Sound Waves. It used to be a video store."
"You can see that truck there. That's my brother. He's a truck driver. All of those trucks right there are his trucks. So his whole livelihood is just sitting in a pile of dirt."
Rolling Fork is 75% Black, and U.S. Census data shows about one-fifth of the population lives below the federal poverty line.
Williams, the survivor, sits on the Rolling Fork council – he’s upbeat the town can pull together.
"This is going to take a while, this recovery here. There's physical damage, a recovery going to take a while. But emotionally (UNCLEAR) we can come together right now. And that's what I see so far. So, you know, that's what I see."
On Sunday Governor Tate Reeves told Mississippi residents 'help is on the way'
The same day, President Joe Biden approved an emergency declaration – he called the images from Mississippi “heartbreaking” while pledging full federal support for the recovery.
