Newton County tornado
A lead on a story out of Yazoo City, Miss., that moved this morning on the Associated Press wire service read like this:
“Morgan Hayden and Joe Moton stepped carefully through nails, broken glass and pink tufts of insulation, the remnants of their home leveled by a tornado as severe storms killed at least 10 people in rural Mississippi and two in Alabama.
It’s the kind of lead we’ve found ourselves writing here far too often. Consider in May of 2003, the three deadly tornadoes that hit Franklin, Kan., Carl Junction, Pierce City and Stockton. Then, in 2008, even as we had just completed our five-year anniversary retrospect on that killer storm, we’re hit by a tornado that began in Oklahoma and ended up as an F-4 that destroyed hundred of homes and killed 22 people.
I count myself very lucky not to be one of those 22. I was in my vehicle about a quarter mile from Iris Road when the tornado barreled across the pasture. I had just come up a hill and was at the top when I saw it. It looked like a giant sheet of rain until I looked up and saw debris swirling overhead. Moments later my Epedition was picked up and deposited into a ditch. All the windows blew out and then debris from a nearby trailer began pelting the side of the vehicle. I never expected to make it through alive. But, a few scratches and a destoryed vehicle was the extent of the physical damage. Mentally, well, it’s hard to say. All I know is when I read about storms like that one that hit Mississippi, I know exactly what they are talking about. The roar of a tornado is something you never forget.
Earlier this spring, the National Weather Service released photos we had never seen.The one you’re looking at was taken about a half mile away from where I was. I never realized the enormity of what I was driving into.
My youngest son, Joe, asked the obvious questions: “Mom, why didn’t you back up?”
Believe me, there was not time to do anything but hang on.
