Joe Biden conjures up “heartbreaking” images after a tornado hit Mississippi

According to a still tentative report, at least 23 people were killed in this southern state. This meteorological phenomenon, though impressive and difficult to predict, is relatively common in the United States.

On Saturday, US President Joe Biden spoke of “heartbreaking images” in Mississippi (south), which was hit by a hurricane that killed at least 23 people.

“The images across Mississippi are heartbreaking,” he said in a statement, stressing that the federal state will do “everything we can to help,” “for as long as it takes.”

Evaluation is still tentative

At least 23 people were killed when a tornado swept through Mississippi, leaving a trail of devastated landscapes, the governor of southern Mississippi said Saturday.

“It’s a tragedy,” Governor Tate Reeves said on Twitter, referring to “devastating damage” after the hurricane passed across the Mississippi River more than 150 kilometers from west to east on Friday night.

And the toll could get worse. Unfortunately, these numbers are expected to change “upward,” Mississippi Emergency Services (MSEMA) said on Twitter. Search and rescue teams are on a mission to find the victims.

“everything was swept away”

In Rolling Fork, a town of about 2,000 people in western Mississippi, images Saturday morning showed rows of homes torn from their meager foundations, streets strewn with debris and cars flipped on their roofs. Two trailers were also stacked on top of each other.

Trees were uprooted and pieces of metal wrapped around the trunks while the ground was still standing but wobbly for one house.

“Almost everything” in the city has been swept away, Patricia Perkins, 61, a resident of the city, told AFP by phone. “Most of the stores were destroyed by the hurricane,” says this clerk at a hardware store.

Free from debris

Hurricane hunter Aaron Rigsby describes arriving at the scene Friday evening and hearing “the cries of people trapped under the rubble, calling for help.” “There was a woman who was unable to take shelter in time and was clipped and the roof of her house fell on her,” he told AFP.

“I managed to free her from under the rubble,” he adds, and she called for help when she was shot in the leg.

Another lady found herself “stuck between her couch, bits of ceiling, and a refrigerator,” he said again, speaking of “the same scenes all over town.”

relatively common phenomenon

MSEMA’s Mallory White said the “priority at this point” is ensuring “the safety of neighborhoods and locating people to check for their safety”. This Saturday, the National Weather Service (NWS) branch in Jackson, the Mississippi state capital, noted that “the hurricane watch has been lifted throughout the area in question.”

“More rain and more thunderstorms are expected in our region,” he wrote on Twitter, stressing that “it should not be heavy based on the forecast.”

This meteorological phenomenon, while impressive and difficult to predict, is relatively common in the United States, especially in the center and south of the country. As of December 2021, about 80 people have lost their lives after tornadoes hit Kentucky.