Tornado Warning!

Have you ever wondered what it would feel like to be woken up from your sleep by a knock at your camper  with the news that there is a tornado warning for your area and you should go to a safe place now? That happened last night! During the night we endured lightning non-stop for hours with thunder banging loudly constantly. The rain came down in sheets and pounded on the campers. Hours and hours of weather happening. Suddenly just before 5 a.m., there was banging on each of our campers’ doors. One couple in our group has a weather radio specifically dedicated to a US National Weather Network  frequency. It will broadcast a loud alarm and howl when severe weather warnings currently exist. This is designed to be an alert any time of the day or night. The alarm had gone off and there were severe thunderstorm warnings as well as a tornado watch warning for the county immediately south of us. I got so scared when I heard the pounding on the door, louder than the rain banging on the roof. Our co-worker Bernie yelled that a tornado warning had been issued for our area and we needed to get to the campground washroom immediately. Henry and I grabbed our ID and our passports and rain jackets and went outside. I noticed my hands were just shaking. I felt panicky. We couldn't walk anywhere without getting very wet and muddy. The campground was now a pool. Water everywhere. We hopped into vehicles and drove to the washroom and waited out the storm. There was one unconfirmed report of a tornado sighting about half an hour south of where we live, but an hour later we got word it was safe to go back to bed in our campers.

Ladies taking shelter in their washroom

Abandoned houses in the neighbourhood

While we are not living in Tornado Alley, they are far more common here than in Manitoba. Our project here is to build a new house replacing one that was severely damaged by a tornado a year ago. While no one was killed in this community due to the tornado, there was quite a bit of damage done. In the neighbourhood of our project, the houses were not flattened but generally damaged beyond repair. The pictures below show a good sampling of what the immediate neighbourhood looks like. Most houses have not been repaired or replaced because the owners could not afford it. Some are owned by slum landlords who get no assistance and have left their buildings derelict.                     - Mic

                                 

Map showing location of Miss Mattie's house and level of damage and destruction of neighbourhood

List of houses being repaired or replaced

Map showing tornado's path of destruction through Hattiesburg and area