'Windblown friendship:' Photos scattered hundreds of miles in tornado connect MS residents

ROLLING FORK — The twister hit on the night of March 24, flattening Susan Perry’s home in rural Rolling Fork and scattering little pieces of her life across the state.

In Grenada, more than a hundred miles from Rolling Fork, a man found Perry’s baby shower invitation she had saved from when her daughter Peyton was born in 2001.

Nearly 200 miles northeast in Pontotoc, a woman found a photo of Perry as a young girl with a childhood friend in her front yard.

In Endville, 180 miles away, Kacie Cochran Horton was visiting her parents when she found a beloved baby photo of Perry’s daughter covered in debris in the driveway.

“It’s unbelievable that people are finding this,” Perry said. “It just amazes me that these things can travel so far.”

The powerful EF-4 tornado with winds of 170 mph ripped across the Mississippi Delta last month, destroying hundreds of homes and businesses in the farming towns of Rolling Fork and Silver City and killing 21 people.

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Those who lost everything have found a bright spot in a special Facebook page called Lost & Found Photos/Documents of the March 24, 2023 MS Tornado where people have been posting pictures of recovered items in hopes of sending them back to the owners.

From checks and bank statements to pictures of proms, weddings, family reunions, grandmas, babies and old boyfriends, the remnants of people’s lives have been scattered across the state.

In most cases, the people in the pictures are identified through Facebook with friends and loved ones tagging each other and exclaiming “that’s my auntie,” or “that’s my baby!”

The response is joy and thankful emojis that someone has found a cherished memory.

Jan Spradling, posting to the Facebook page, was looking to identify a man and a woman in a picture found in her front yard in Burce, about 138 miles from Rolling Fork.

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The people were quickly identified as Sharkey County Sheriff Lindsey Adams standing with his mother.  The police station was one of many destroyed buildings in Rolling Fork.

“The picture on the right is in the mail back to the family,” Spradling later commented on Facebook. “My prayers go out to all the families affected by the tornado.”

The group now has more than 6,000 members with daily posts as people keep finding items.

Giving back

The page was started by Hanna Burt, a 31-year-old teacher and mom of two from Houston, Miss., who lost her family home in a 2011 tornado.

Burt said she was touched when a woman in Alabama found some of her family photos and tracked her down through Facebook. She’s hoping to give back.

“When your home is completely destroyed and there’s nothing left, it’s so special to get back these memories,” she said.

Bill Gallus, an Iowa State University meteorology professor who specialized in the structure of tornadoes, said it’s not uncommon for strong twisters to carry debris for hundreds of miles.

There was a case in Alabama, he said, where a tornado carried a 40-pound metal sign from a high school for tens of miles. When a 2011 Joplin, Missouri tornado hit a hospital, medical records fell from the sky for miles.

Gallus said the phenomena comes from the tornado's powerful funnel, where vertical winds can blow up to 200 miles per hour.

Lighter items like pictures and paper are sucked up in the funnel and then carried along in a jet stream.

“Basically, the winds going straight up can be just as strong as the winds going around,” he said.

While Perry lost everything when her home was destroyed, she is glad to have some of her old pictures back and has gained a friend in Chochran Horton, who found her daughter’s baby photo.

The two women have been chatting daily since they connected on the Facebook page and are planning to meet. Cochran Horton said she plans to drive nearly 200 miles to where Perry is staging with her daughter so she can return the photo in person.

“It’s something simple that means so much to someone who’s lost everything,” said Cochran Horton.

A new friendship

Reagan Dilmore, whose childhood home was destroyed in Rolling Fork, also made a connection with the woman in Banner who found one of her photos the day after the tornado hit.

On Saturday, Dilmore, who lives in Madison, got her picture back in the mail along with a “MS Strong” koozie and a sweet message on the back of the photo saying, “My prayers and blessings are with you and with your family always!”

The two have been keeping in touch since they first connected.

“She calls it a windblown friendship,” Dilmore said.

Dilmore and her relatives lost two family homes in Rolling Fork, with many items popping up on Facebook. A few days ago, someone found her 7th grade track ribbon in Carrollton. In Bruce, a woman found her high school cheerleading photo.

Dilmore’s cousin, Ashley Christopher Goldman, said she’s been checking the page daily to find more photos.

Christopher Goldman said her mother was upset she had lost some recent pictures of her grandchildren where her home was destroyed.

“I told her don’t worry, mom,” she said. “They’ll probably show up somewhere in Mississippi in a few days.”

This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: MS tornado victims reconnected with family photos scattered across state