Mississippi, war zone after the passage of the tornado that caused 25 deaths

Outside, houses destroyed, trees stretched out with their roots exposed. Inside, stretchers line up in front of tables overflowing with food. In Rolling Fork, Mississippi, where a tornado has sown chaos and deathrelief is being organized for the victims and volunteers are arriving from neighboring villages.

Less than 24 hours after the tornado hit that city in the southeastern United States Friday night, the local Red Cross set up shop in a National Guard building.

A room is used as an infirmary, an ambulance is parked at the entrance and through the rear access of the rooms they continue to arrive. boxes filled with granola bars or baby diapers.

“We’re trying to provide people with a place to stay for the night with food and medical support so they can have a place to rest because they’ve lost everything,” says John Brown, Red Cross manager for Alabama and Mississippi .

A small town

Rolling Fork, with just 2,000 inhabitants, “Looks like a war zone” as if “a bomb had exploded,” the official continues.

At least 25 people died in Mississippi as a result of the tornado.

Whether or not they choose to stay in the care centre, the inhabitants will have been able to find out about the situation, feed themselves and recover a minimum of strength to face the moment, Brown adds.

This is the case of Anna Krisuta, 43, with her son Álvaro Llecha, 16, sitting one on a stretcher, the other on a chair, with electric blue energy drinks placed in front of them.

Your house is “in pieces”says Anna Krisuta with a brave smile. Both take out their cellphones to show the extent of the damage, captured on video.

Will they spend the night in this centre? They are not sure. Perhaps they prefer to “sleep in the car,” says Álvaro, looking at his mother with some doubt.

The teenager assures that he owes his salvation only to the fact that hidden in the bathroomthe room he considered the safest in the house.

pain and anger

“I thought I was dying,” he says in anguish, remembering mostly the rushing wind “that blew through the bottom door” of his house.

Arrived from Vicksburg, about 70 km from Rolling Fork, volunteer Lauren Hoda cannot hide the mixture of “sadness”, “pain” and “anger” who feels about the “injustice” inflicted on the inhabitants.

“When I woke up this morning I felt like crying by the people of this town because I don’t think they had much time before it (the tornado) happened. There were people eating in restaurants, families in their beds,” says this 28-year-old who says he has already experienced another major natural disaster: Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Hoda spent Saturday night in Rolling Fork carrying donations: water, food, preserves, diapers, wipes, medicine, deodorant, toothpaste, you name it.

Jon Gebhardt, an assistant professor of military science at the University of Mississippi at Oxford — about a three-hour drive from Rolling Fork — says he arrived in the middle of the night after the tornado hit. to help set up the center.

Because of the “pain and anguish” that the inhabitants expressed, “I cried a lot today,” she admits. “But this morning, when I woke up and saw the generosity and ability of this community to come together during such a difficult time,” he felt “lucky to be in Mississippi.”

Can the physical and moral reconstruction of the country be done in a few weeks? “No,” she replies. “Will this population be able to become a better version of themselves in the years to come? Yes, I believe it,” he says, confident in the “resilience” of the Mississippi Delta.