[melancholy music] - Hello, everybody.

I'm Willy Bearden.

All too often now, springtime weather in the South brings disaster.

We've all seen the images of small towns torn apart.

This is the story of one of those towns.

For years, the center of tornado activity in America has been shifting east and south, putting more people in the path of storms that are more frequent and more powerful.

On the evening of March 24th, 2023, the people of Rolling Fork, Mississippi in the South Delta were in that path.

A tornado wrecked homes, businesses, and churches, and wrecked lives.

What happened to those people hit me hard.

You see, Rolling Fork is my hometown.

It's where I grew up.

For more than a year after the tornado, my longtime friend, George Larrimore, and I, returned to Rolling Fork again and again, because the stories of the people, stories of courage, and compassion, and resilience needed to be told.

[brooding music] - There was this little red cell coming across Louisiana.

I mean, it was really tight and firecracker red.

And I told my employee, I said, that's bad news right there.

- We had, it was like no warning.

It was just one minute notice.

- I heard the freight train.

And I said, "Oh, no, I know what this is."

- I thought it was making its way down my trailer.

I thought it was just eating up my trailer, getting to us.

And I just started saying, "Lord, please protect my family.

Lord, please protect my family."

- At that moment, you're just thinking about, am I gonna live?

Am I gonna survive?

[brooding music] - It was quiet.

And it was dark, and it was so quiet, and all you could hear people hollering, hollering for help.

- This man walked up to me and said, "There's two dead bodies behind Family Dollar."

- I'm Willy Bearden.

Rolling Fork in the South Delta is my hometown.

I'm a writer and filmmaker, a storyteller.

This is where I heard and told my first stories.

This story is about what happened that Friday night and about what's happened since as Rolling Fork tries to rise up again from the disaster.

Clark Secoy was working in his liquor store.

He said it was an average Friday night at first.

- When I turned it on to see, the guy was already talking.

He said, "Rolling Fork, you got two minutes."

And so, the employee, and myself, and the customer went in the back of the back of the store and road it out.

- Levi Robinson was watching the news too.

- I was on the phone talking to my pop and mama, and I was watching the news on the TV.

And they said it was a tornado, a big, dangerous tornado, seven mile west of Rolling Fork.

And I called Pop, I say, "Pop, there's something serious headed y'all way."

And Pop said, "Yeah, yeah, it's gonna blow like it always do."

I said, "No, Pop."

I said, "And they said it was dangerous."

So when it got about three miles, I said, "Pop, you and mama go get in the bathtub."

And Pop said, Pop was standing at the door.

And Pop said, "I don't see nothing!"

And I said, then I heard Mama say, "James, come get in the bathtub."

And then, all of a sudden, I heard Mama and Pop hollering.

And he told me... And Mama was stuck in the tub.

He couldn't get out.

And then, all of a sudden, the phone went dead.

That was the longest 17 minutes of my life.

- Tracy Harden was at work that night at Chuck's Dairy Bar, the local landmark that she and her husband own on Highway 61.

- And in that one minute time after that message, the lights blinked.

And luckily, we had all headed to the back of the building, because they were telling me that her mom had called.

I was letting them know my message from my daughter, and the lights blinked.

[reverse alarm beeping] And I said, "Cooler."

My husband yanked the door and started throwing us in.

The lights went out.

We were being tossed [phone ringing] a little bit here and there.

And that was a scary moment.

- Yeah.

- And it just lasted a very short time, but I feel like it was forever.

- Charles Weissinger combed through the rubble of his law office one day when we were there.

That night, Charles had just finished giving his five-year-old grandson, Fisher, a bath.

- Got him out of the tub right about eight o'clock.

And then, I was trying to get his trunks on him, and he was not interested at all, he was running around naked, laughing.

And then, all of a sudden, I heard this terrible noise.

And I started feeling real clammy.

And I knew something bad was happening.

- Charles took his grandson to the safest place he could find, the stairway landing.

- So I got him and got out on the landing, which was protected on three sides and laid down on him, and it blew through.

And she came, Anne came running to the foot of the stairs, and I told her, screaming.

I said, "Get down, I got the baby.

Get down!"

- This was once the foundation of Undray Williams' home.

He represents Ward 4 on the Town's Board of Alderman.

It was directly in the path of the tornado.

- In a matter seconds, it was right up on me.

No warning, no nothing.

And next thing I know, I heard boards flying.

It was like angels lifting me up off the ground.

And slowly, it was like slow motion.

And next thing I know, I was in the tub.

- Natalie Perkins is the editor of Rolling Fork's weekly newspaper, "The Deer Creek Pilot."

She's also second in command of the county's emergency management team.

That Friday night, Natalie was at her daughter's prom.

- One of the parents came in and said that his son, that a tornado had hit Rolling Fork and his son was trapped in his house.

And I looked at my daughter and said, "I have to go to work."

And I didn't see her for two days after that.

- Perkins immediately raced back to Rolling Fork, checked on the newspaper office, and retrieved her emergency radio.

- Standing there in that parking lot and listening to the gas hissing, I mean, it was just a roar of gas hissing.

And I think at that moment, it just, it really hit me that my town was gone, devastated.

- The west side of Rolling Fork is where the tornado hit first.

About 60 miles away in Jackson, Mississippi, weather experts, including a guy named Logan Poole, were watching a killer tornado develop, and they worried about the people in it's path.

- What's actually important is to recognize that these can happen, these will continue to happen.

And when they do, they're more dangerous here than essentially anywhere else in the country.

- Logan Poole is a meteorologist with the National Weather Service Team in Jackson.

He showed us what he was tracking on his computer that Friday night.

- And we were watching the cluster of storms coming out of northeast Louisiana, crossing the Mississippi River.

We started to see it, and then, suddenly, almost within a number of minutes, we had one of the most destructive tornadoes on the ground that this state has ever experienced.

- Logan was familiar with Rolling Fork.

He had passed through town earlier in March on his way to inspect damage from an earlier tornado that had struck the nearby town of Anguilla.

As he watched the tornado bear down, Logan thought about the people in its path.

- I was there a few weeks before.

and I think to myself, "What do I tell these people?

What do I tell them?"

They get a storm that's gonna be on top of them in a handful of minutes that may not be survivable in a mobile home.

And where do they go?

I know they don't have shelters.

Do I tell 'em to leave?

Do you just watch it happen?

We gave them over 10, 15 minutes of advanced warning in Rolling Fork.

And prior to that, we were letting people know through Facebook Live and through messaging through our partners.

- We have a strong rotational couplet with a tornadic thunderstorm, moving into Sharkey County.

If you live in the Rolling Fork area, you should be taking cover now.

- We talked about warnings where we gave them lead time.

Lead time for what?

To worry, to just know the inevitable?

No, I refuse to accept that.

We have to figure out a way to give these people a real, actionable thing to do when we issue these warnings.

- In the harsh light of sunrise on Saturday, the damage was clear.

Ultimately, 17 people died.

Most of them in the mobile home park right behind Chuck's.

Everything was disrupted, including electrical power and gas.

The giant white water tower in the middle of town had been knocked down by the tornado, dumping 150,000 gallons of water.

- This is the front of the house.

Right there where that hole is would be our front steps.

- Randy Scott is Rolling Fork's Public Works director.

He's responsible for the city's water and sewer systems.

That night, he was at home with an eye on the threatening weather.

Scott decided to make the quick drive to check on his 84-year-old mother.

- The moment I turn into the driveway, it begins to really swirl bad.

And I'm thinking, I might try getting out and getting inside.

I wouldn't have made it, because it hit like a second later.

At that moment, you're just thinking about, am I gonna live?

Am I gonna survive?

- Scott immediately turned back to his own home.

This time, the drive took almost an hour.

- I started trying to come back through town.

Every light pole in town was down.

Every tree was across the road.

And I make it all the way to where I usually check the water tower, and the tower's gone.

- He was able to reach his wife, Lisa.

- I slept about two hours that night, got back up.

And then, that's when I started trying to assess where the city was with the water and the sewer.

Because, you know, you don't know really how bad things are, if you can even fix it good enough for people to stay.

- Except for generators, the power was out.

Gas had been shut off.

With the help of a friend in the Mississippi Rural Water Association, they went to work on restoring the water supply.

That Friday night, Randy Scott had understood he had to make a choice, try and salvage his family's belongings, or help his community.

- You don't know if you ever in your life, you're gonna be put in that position.

But when it happens, you know it's you.

You know you're the only one.

You're the only one that can do the job that has got to be done.

- Monday morning, I gathered my gear and aimed south, down Highway 61.

I had to see it for myself.

I know Rolling Fork like the back of my hand, but I was not prepared for the reality.

And look, just a trailer back there just rolled up.

God!

Half the houses in town were damaged to the point that now they're gone.

The police department, the post office, city hall, the library, and on and on.

The courthouse and the hospital had to close temporarily.

The Episcopal Church, The Chapel of the Cross was shattered.

It was a centerpiece in the community for almost a hundred years.

This is downtown Rolling Fork, or what's left of it.

Not long after the storm, the old buildings around the courthouse were demolished.

There wasn't much business in this part of town anyway.

And many of the buildings were crumbling.

Not long ago, I came across some old home movies from 1962 and '63.

I was in this crowd, watching as the high school band and the car carrying the homecoming queen passed through the square.

These movies are a window, not just into the past, but into a different world.

That Rolling Fork was a place where I knew almost everybody, and they knew me.

Everything was a bicycle ride away.

The high school football team, back then, called The Colonels, was a powerhouse in the Delta when I played.

But change was taking place.

School integration had begun.

And by 1969, the high school football team had two Black players.

By the late '60s, many African Americans had already begun to leave the Delta for good, and not just Rolling Fork.

Economics was part of it.

Agriculture was changing.

In the cotton and soybean fields, machines were replacing farm hands.

Many Black people found more opportunity elsewhere.

And the racism they faced in the Delta was always a factor.

In Rolling Fork, as in the rest of Mississippi, Black and White continued to live side by side, but not together.

Congressman Bennie Thompson knows the Delta about as well as anyone.

He's represented the area in Washington for more than 30 years.

I talked with the Congressman via Zoom from his office in the Capitol.

He went to Rolling Fork immediately that Friday night, and he prevailed on President Biden to visit and to make a commitment to Rolling Fork.

- So we walked the streets with the President.

We talked to some people.

We talked to local elected officials.

We talked to first responders.

Every member of the Board of Aldermen has been on the firing line from the public standpoint, 'cause we have residents, people who are living [phone ringing] in Greenville, we have people living in Vicksburg, and they want to come home.

And you can't blame them.

The children need to go to school, but there's nowhere to... You can't bring them when you don't have the housing, or we can access the temporary housing, but we need to have it in a place that meets the standards for FEMA, not the standards for Rolling Fork.

You could put it anywhere, and you meet the standards of Rolling Fork, because the standards didn't exist.

- What is the future for a small town like Rolling Fork?

- Well, the future is that there a federal government who's committed to building that community back, building it back better than what it was before the storm.

After that, it's up to the local leadership to decide what Rolling Fork will look like after they've redone the hospital, after they've redone the school, the elevated water tank, all the other public buildings.

But there's no reason that we can't have adequate streets, adequate housing, adequate healthcare, adequate education to go along with it.

But at some point when we pass the keys back to you, Rolling Fork will be in a better place.

But then, it becomes the city fathers and mother's responsibility from that day forward, - After the tornado, help began to pour in immediately.

By Saturday morning, television crews began showing the world what had happened.

Another group was organized by the Farm Bureau Insurance Company, which put out a call for volunteers in the Jackson office.

- So we put out a signup list on Friday at about four o'clock, and it took all of 10 minutes for 30 slots to be filled.

So people are really excited and eager to help in any kind of way.

- The gym at the Sharkey Issaquena Academy quickly became a distribution point.

- We have groups that are making different boxes, so they're making food boxes, hygiene boxes, cleaning supplies, bathroom supplies, all those things.

- Between 400 and 800 people were displaced.

Many were forced to live temporarily in hotels across the lower Delta.

Alderman, Undray Williams, was one of them.

In Greenville, we drove with him to meet his constituents, Michelle Larry, and her aunt, Andrea, and her uncle, MJ Chris.

59 days after that conversation, we went back and visited with Andrea and her hotel neighbor, Cherryl Andrews.

By this time, they were frustrated and struggling.

- We walked out with nothing but what we had on, bare feet.

I prayed our way out of that thing.

God took us through this storm, but it didn't bring us in this storm and let us live to be sabotaged.

We have nowhere to go.

I would love to be a resident of Rolling Fork, but there's nowhere for me to go.

Nowhere.

There's no houses to rent.

We don't qualify for a FEMA home.

We don't qualify for a Samaritan Purse.

- Cherryl Andrews and Andrea are longtime friends.

After the tornado, they found themselves two doors down in the motel.

- I have no choice.

My home is there.

Yeah, I mean, we have a home that's been placed there.

So yeah, we will be going back.

It's a hard choice.

I said I didn't want to go, but I talked to the Lord and I told Him, "Lord, whatever your will is for me, I'll do it."

So for a Samaritan's Purse to donate us a mobile home in that exact same spot, that was my answer, so I'm gonna be obedient and go back, even though I don't want to, but I'm gonna trust the process.

- Yeah.

- I was a renter.

That's all, that's the only thing I can say.

- And 60 something percent of the people in Rolling Fork- - Rolling Fork are renters.

- Yeah.

- That's all I can say, I was a renter.

- So if you don't own the house, then you don't have- - You don't have anything to come back and rebuild with.

You don't have anything.

If you don't have renter insurance or whatever, you know, the property insurance on your stuff inside of your home, it's just like, you just left out in the cold.

- Did you have insurance of any sort?

- No insurance at all, none at all.

None.

[notification chiming] - Rebuild Rolling Fork!

Rebuild Rolling Fork!

- Back in Rolling Fork, residents were impatient and angry over the slow pace of recovery, the shortage of replacement housing, and a lack of communication.

A crowd of protestors showed up on a Tuesday at the temporary City Hall demanding answers from Mayor Eldridge Walker.

- I'm here today, because I'm tired of nothing happening with our city buildings.

Our city buildings are horrible.

And it seems like no progress.

And this meeting today, the board should have met today.

And it's a no show.

They canceled it again.

- Then, we don't have anything.

We never received anything from the city.

They never came and checked on us at the motel.

They don't care.

So if they don't care, we're gonna make sure that we are heard.

- And rebuilding the city of Rolling Fork, it is a partnership with all of us.

- Later that same week, the mayor addressed a meeting at the Anguilla Middle School, along with the head of the hospital, the emergency management team, and others.

Residents asked the important questions, what about the schools and housing?

- And I think the audience realized it's going to take time.

It's going to take time for every little project or program to take effect.

And we all just gotta sit tight.

We're doing all we can to make these things happen.

Everybody's working.

And the community now, I think they see that.

- And I know, I understand their frustration that everybody's having.

You know, I'm frustrated.

- Undray Williams represents Ward 4 on the Rolling Fork Board of Alderman.

- This is something first that has devastated our city.

And we're not pros at this.

We ain't never had to deal with...

The first two weeks, it was mayhem here.

'Cause everybody was in shock and traumatized.

Even us, we're humans.

We had three of us.

We lost three Aldermen.

We lost everything, completely destroyed.

- I'm still optimistic that it's going to work out in the long run.

It's just not quick as I want it to be.

- Charles Weissinger's the county prosecutor, and he served in the state legislature.

He looks at the community hospital as the essential component to any comeback.

- I think that we'll have a rebuilt hospital, but without it, turn out the light.

I mean, that 140 jobs, and that are some of the better paid jobs in the community, would be gone.

- God is going to restore what I have.

God is gonna restore what my neighbor have.

- Michelle Larry was one of those displaced by the tornado.

- We all need to come together, Black and White, all colors, us coming together to be able to make Rolling Fork great again.

Because if not, it's going to fall, and it's going to go, it's gonna be just a place that's just remembered as, "Oh, this used to be Rolling Fork."

I don't want it to be like that.

- Our people are resilient and strong for the most part, and I know that a lot of them are determined to build back.

- Natalie Perkins is the newspaper editor.

- My biggest concern now is that we will lose people, and we'll lose businesses.

And we're already so small that we can't.

I'm afraid of what five years down the road holds for Rolling Fork.

I mean, honestly, I am.

And I think that's a concern that everybody has.

[residents chattering] - On a warm Saturday in October, seven months after the tornado, Rolling Fork looked like a town trying to return to normal.

Meg Cooper is the coordinator of the Lower Delta partnership, which put the event together.

- We do need The Great Delta Bear Affair.

Since March 24th, there has been just so much tragedy, so much drama, so much everything going on in the community.

And none of it's been exceptionally positive.

And we need something positive, something uplifting, something to celebrate.

We are seeing progress.

- Tracy Harden, who owns Chuck's Dairy Bar, along with her husband, was out with her family.

She had just watched the Chuck's Burger Eating Contest.

The winner ate four Chuck Burgers in five minutes.

[Willy chuckling] - I don't think we could have asked for a better turnout, being that we just had the tornado.

[upbeat music] I'm just excited for it all.

Normally, by now, I would've gone home and taken a break.

But I'm enjoying seeing all the new people in town.

- There was live music that Saturday.

I had played The Bear Affair with my band many times.

It brought back some great memories.

My friend, Eden Brent, brought her band down from Greenville.

♪ Yeah, he's got the blues ♪ [bouncy jazz music] ♪ I got the getaway blues ♪ - Coming back, they've done so much work already.

I mean, I knew they would build back.

[Eden chuckling] - Right.

- But still, you can tell that something terrible has happened.

You know, the whole part of downtown is missing.

The top of the courthouse is gone.

You know, just all of the familiar landmarks.

If I hadn't seen the tents, I might not have known exactly where to go, because all of the landmarks are still missing.

I was so delighted that the community came together to do this festival, because I think they needed it.

[bouncy jazz music] - The problems still facing the community were on everyone's mind, including Jane Windham Lamberson.

Jane's biggest concern is the Sharkey Issaquena Community Hospital.

She worked there for nearly 50 years and was director of the lab and radiology departments.

- Without our hospital here, you lose probably 75 jobs between the hospital and the nursing home.

People just will not move here at all.

It's already hard to get people to move here, but yeah, if without our hospital, then Rolling Fork's really gone.

- Karebya Christmas was selling beauty products at her booth that Saturday and wondering what to do next.

She and her three children are living with her parents.

She had rented the home she lost on March 24th.

- Not a lot of options for people that were renters.

I would love to buy, but there's nothing here to buy.

If you don't know people that, you know, sold their land, or if you didn't hop on it fast enough, you're kinda out of luck.

A lot of us are being forced to, you know, move out of town, 'cause there's nowhere here to live.

- Yeah.

What are you gonna do?

- I think I'm gonna pack up and leave.

- Rolling Fork, before the storm, was somewhere between 1,800 and 2,000 people.

We can't afford to lose 30% of our population, but without housing, that could happen.

- Fred Miller is president of the local bank and a former Rolling Fork Mayor.

- In order to continue to have any kind of quality of life, we have to have people here.

- After March 24th, Miller and other local leaders started an organization called Rolling Fork Rising.

The goal was not to simply build new houses, but to put former renters in those houses as homeowners.

- A lot of the people just are gonna leave us.

We know that.

But if we can bring others in, give them the opportunity to live in a house, newly painted with drywall, all the things that people should have in today's America, we're gonna be able to do that.

And we think that there could be generational changes, not just for the adults, but certainly for their children.

- Shirley Stamps is one of those who will be moving into a house built by Rolling Fork Rising.

She was among hundreds of Rolling Fork residents displaced by the tornado to towns across the Delta.

We first talked with Shirley in December at the house she was renting in Greenville.

- And I'd like to take my grandkids and my child to a good, safe place.

And Rolling Fork was a safe place.

- What happened to Shirley is an example of how the tornado turned lives upside down.

For Shirley, the Rolling Fork Rising Program is a godsend.

Until now, she's been a renter.

- It helped me to learn to manage my money, be a first time homeowner.

I'll be owning my own house.

I won't have to rent no more.

And thank God.

I won't have to worry about renting from nobody else.

It will be my own.

And I thank God for that.

That's something I've been wanting all my life, my own, something my own.

- After the tornado, most financial support from government agencies and insurance went to property owners.

But 68% of the residents of Rolling Fork at the time were renters, like Shirley Stamps.

- There should have been a more urgent action to get housing here as quickly as possible for those that are renters.

- Alexis Hamilton is an agent with the Mississippi State University Extension Service.

He is also a part of the Rolling Fork Rising team.

He understands the frustration felt in much of the community.

- Sometimes, you just have to do what's best for the community and get them a place to live, get them back home, so you can keep those residents, keep the tax base up, and keep the schools blooming, and things such as that nature.

So you just have to put your own ideals and own things aside and just do what works for now.

Get people in homes now.

- Britt Williamson is the pastor of the First Baptist Church.

He's also the CEO of Rolling Fork Rising.

Even before the tornado, he was aware that the housing issue is the result of deeper economic problems.

- I knew when I moved to Rolling Fork in 2012 that this was a poverty stricken area.

I knew that 38% of the people in Sharkey County live below the federal poverty line, which is a little over 23,000 a year.

What I didn't know until after the tornado was that a majority people here lived in rental housing.

Homeowners have a lot of different ways that they can receive funds to repair or rebuild their house.

There is almost nothing to help a renter family.

- Commercial builders are also at work in Rolling Fork.

Daniel Jennings is a developer from Vicksburg.

His company is putting up energy efficient homes.

- I think that what we are doing right now with the homes gives an indication as to how the town can come back.

Because now you see new life, you know?

And with new life, it's new possibilities.

So I hear people say, well, you know, Rolling Fork probably won't be the same.

Maybe it'll be better.

- After the tornado, faith-based organizations came from all over to help.

A team from God's pit crew arrived in red trucks, loaded with everything it took to build and furnish two houses in 12 days.

Andrea Larry's mobile home had to be demolished.

Now, Andrea and her husband and their grandson, Kobe, are back in Rolling Fork in a mobile home that was a gift from the North Carolina based organization, Samaritan's Purse.

- And it's just been a blessing.

It's been a blessing.

And they came back out, and they check on you all the time to make sure, you know, everything's going well.

- When we met Andrea's niece, Michelle, all that remained of her home was a concrete slab.

Now Michelle lives close to her aunt in a mobile home that arrived fully furnished, also from Samaritan's Purse.

We've been told by many people in Rolling Fork that if there's not enough new housing to go around, and soon, this already difficult situation will get worse.

So the site of new homes going up is a positive thing.

- A homeowner starts rebuilding a house when we're building houses, it brings hope to everybody in the community.

And so, I firmly believe that God has a plan for this area, and that He's gonna see us build back better than we were before.

- Before the tornado, this bare piece of ground was Alexis and Miriam Jackson-Hamilton's front yard.

Alexis is part of the Rolling Fork Rising team.

Miriam is the only licensed professional counselor in the county.

She's helping the people of Rolling Fork with the damage that doesn't show.

Among them are her own children.

- Their senses are very much so heightened right now.

Whereas the rain used to excite them, now, it's a totally different emotion that they feel.

It's fear.

It's, I don't want it to rain.

[water rushing] I have to explain to some of them, rain is all a part of life.

[thunder rumbling] We have to have rain in order for the crops to survive, but they never thought about that.

Now, they associate rain, wind, tornado, they're afraid.

I see a lot of children who initially had a lot of sleep disturbances, and some of them still are.

School has started back, and they still have these horrible sleep schedules because they've been off of their schedule since the tornado.

- Miriam and her husband, Alexis, have four children, ages four to 14.

- But I was at home with my oldest son, and we all fell 16 stairs down into the basement - The night of the tornado, a friend took their family in.

She gave Miriam's 9-year-old son, Mason, a Spider-Man toy.

- I didn't realize the impact of getting a Spider-Man, a little, fluffy Spider-Man, what they would do to my son that night.

And my son ran in and he was like, "Look!

Look at my..." And I just started to cry, because I didn't even realize how important them having something to play with was for them.

But a lot of adults are just in that robot mode.

I'm just doing what I have to do.

And I'm saying that a lot right now, especially for the people who are already struggling.

- As soon as the tornado hit, FEMA went into action, along with its Mississippi counterpart.

Darrell Dragoo is the federal coordinating officer for FEMA in Mississippi.

- We wanna see recovery happen.

We wanna see things happen faster.

But the truth of the matter is, if we tried to rebuild an entire county courthouse, a brand new community center, or a new city hall and fire departments, that's not gonna happen in a month.

It literally will take a year, three years, five years.

- By the end of 2023, FEMA had brought in 86 portable housing units, along with a lot of other assistance.

And at that time, 300 FEMA people were still working in Mississippi.

But as expected, they encountered a lot of frustration.

- It's difficult some days, not because you aren't making progress, but you realize how hard it is and you realize how much hurt is actually out there, or what happened to those residence, those people that called that home.

- One of the most remarkable stories we found is also one of the most unlikely.

It's about the rescuers and the rescued, and the night when a tornado forged a remarkable friendship.

- This is, uh... - Taylor.

- Taylor room.

- And Taylor is who, your daughter?

- Niece.

- Her niece.

- Your niece, okay.

- That's Taylor room.

This is Mackenzie's room.

- Mhm.

- That's another niece.

- These are the Morris sisters in the family home being built to replace the one they lost March 24th.

Around Rolling Fork, Deborah and Brenda are known as Tiny and Batman.

There were 11 family members in the house that Friday night.

Then, another sister called [thunder rumbling] with a warning.

- I just got up, and you know, and ran in there and told everybody, you know, that they take shelter, because there's a tornado that's headed toward Rolling Fork on the ground, and we finna get hit hard.

- I was getting ready to cook, and that's when she came and said, "Everybody take, you know, we gotta take shelter now."

So by the time I went to turn around, I thought about it, I left the stove on.

I said, "Ooh, I left the stove on."

I went to turn the stove off.

But by the time I turned the stove off and went to, like she said, go in the hallway, it knocked us down.

- Mhm.

- Tonya and Daton Griffin are storm chasers, mother and son from Talladega, Alabama.

At that moment, they were just south of Rolling Fork.

We rode with them to where they were that night.

[storm chasers faintly speaking] [horn honking] - Hey!

- Hold your ground!

- Let's go!

- Going north on Highway 61, the scene was operatic.

[wind drowned out storm chaser speaking] - I think he took off.

- Hopefully- - They were in a kind of caravan with at least six other chase teams.

What they saw on their in-car radar was right in front of them, a massive tornado, winds of almost 200 miles an hour.

- These cars need to stop.

Dude, look!

- This is going PDS.

- Brenda Morris and her family were right under it.

Within minutes, the storm chasers became rescuers.

This video was recorded by Sawyer Delatte.

- Go, go, go!

- What?

- Cats!

- Tonya and Daton ended up in front of 333 Mulberry Street, under the rubble that had been the house.

Brenda and the others could hear them searching for survivors.

- And they just were coming down the street, and they was, tell us if y'all got a light, or a flashlight, or your phone, you know, flicker your lights so we can know where you are.

Just holler.

Just just keep hollering, "Help!"

You know, "Help!"

By the grace of God, He let me got my right hand out through the woods, and you know, just got it out.

And I was waving my hand with my flash with my phone on my flasher.

And that's how they found us.

- You have people under the walls that are, that car's on top of, so that makes you just, I had to say it.

I said, "Don't take this the wrong way, I'm not trying to scare you.

But on top of you is a wall.

On top of that wall is another wall.

And on top of that wall is a car."

And this silence just ran over the house.

It was about 15 seconds or so, and all I heard was, "A car?"

And I said, "Yeah."

- Amazingly, Brenda's 8-year-old nephew, Jeremy, was the only one badly hurt, but now she says, he's back to his old self.

Brenda and Tonya stayed in touch by phone after that.

Then, on October 28th, Tonya and her son drove back to Rolling Fork.

- Well, hello there!

- Hi, friend!

- How y'all doing?

You doing good?

- I'm doing good!

- How are you?

- Yeah.

- Hi!

[indistinct] - Thank you so much!

Oh yeah.

- Yes ma'am, always, always.

So just, this is Josh.

He was there that night.

- Hello!

- Okay.

[residents faintly speaking] - Everybody got introduced, including a group of environmental science students from the University of Louisiana, who had also helped with the rescue.

After the tornado, the storm chasers were called heroes.

The Griffins say they got that wrong.

- One thing about that night that will always stand out with me, it don't matter how many we pulled out.

- Right.

- If they were able to walk and help that night, they got out, they lost everything, but they started helping with the rescue.

- It turns out the disaster of March 24th had a way of revealing humanity.

- Is this a friendship now?

- Yes, it is.

- Oh.

- Oh, yes, it is.

- I think it's not a friendship.

- More than a friendship.

Sisters.

- Exactly.

- There you go, sisters.

[residents faintly speaking] - The town is much different than a year ago.

Businesses have built back, including the Double Quick by Deer Creek.

Amanda Rutherford and her co-owner had to make due to keep business going at the Green Apple, their flower shop on Highway 61.

- I immediately wanted to build back.

It was never an option for me.

I'm thinking it's gonna be a while.

I think it's gonna be a couple of years before we get back to normal.

But I think the community and the people want this little town to thrive.

I mean, they want it to be here.

They need it to be here.

- At Service Lumber Company across the highway, [reverse alarm beeping] Brett Bailess is the general manager.

When the tornado hit, everyone from customers, to suppliers jumped in to help.

- You know, the destruction was unbelievable.

But what was more unbelievable was the selflessness of random people showing up to help everybody.

- B.J.

Anderson's day job is at Service Lumber Company.

He and his wife, Vaughn, also run a restaurant, where they serve what they say is the best fish in town.

And Brandon is also a member of the Sharkey County Board of Supervisors.

- It is very important of getting the business back off the ground.

And you know, that way, the people, they'll want to come back, they'll find a way to come back.

But if, you know, if they not seeing no kind of progress, they gonna be like, "Nah, I'm just gonna go on, try somewhere else."

And it could be 30 miles down the road, but still, there's less residents that we have here in, you know, in Sharkey County.

- Eldridge Walker, who most people know as Butch, is Rolling Fork's Mayor, but he's also a businessman.

He owns the local funeral home - With a rebuild, it's given us the opportunity to somewhat start all over again.

- Since the tornado, Mayor Walker's faced criticism at the pace of recovery and about some of the decisions that were made.

Still, he expects many residents will return to a revived Rolling Fork.

- But I'm more focused on people who want to stay in Rolling Fork, Mississippi, because it's their home and because they want to see this community rebuilt.

And they want to be a part of it, and I want them to be a part of it.

- This is the Sharkey Issaquena Community Hospital.

We've been told over and over again that without the hospital, the future of Rolling Fork is in question.

From the outside, there's not a lot of visible damage, but the hospital is closed, and its future is uncertain.

- Probably around 120 people just showed up at the hospital, walked to the hospital, however they could get there.

What if they had nowhere to go?

- Jerry Keever is the CEO of the hospital.

He has also made ambulance runs as an EMT.

Peggy Johnson runs the nursing home.

That night, Peggy had to walk from her home across town to get to her patients.

- Most of them were terrified that night.

And you could see it on their face.

Some of 'em, you know, when I got there, some of 'em were telling me, you know, they were crying.

I was so scared, you know, I thought the the building was gonna come down.

- There were 12 patients and six staff on duty in the hospital that Friday night.

Soon, others came to help, including volunteer doctors and nurses, and others, including off-duty hospital staff.

- If they were able to get here, they came that night.

And that's dedication, that's loyalty to the facility.

That's loyalty to the community.

And that's loyalty to the people that we serve, because they knew that their neighbors needed help.

You know, the tornado, we could not even, we had patients lined up in the hallway, just- - Jerry and Peggy led us through the now empty hallways and treatment rooms to show us the damage.

- So this would be our primary trauma room.

But the night of the tornado, we could not use this room, because of the water intrusion.

- Within 48 hours, hospital operations moved into what had been the Civic Center, and before that, the National Guard Armory.

The question Rolling Fork is facing is whether to rebuild the hospital or replace it.

Keever thinks a new facility on Highway 61 is the best idea.

When we were there, work was going on to get the residents back in the nursing home, which the town also badly needs.

The tornado lifted the roof, and the entire facility had to be rewired.

One of the major problems for Mississippi's rural hospitals, like Sharkey Issaquena, is uncompensated cost for patients who have no insurance, like many of those who walked through these doors.

And after the tornado, the hospital lost 68% of its revenue.

- So if you're self-paying, you don't have any insurance coverage, you have no Medicaid, have no Medicare, you have nothing.

When they present to the emergency room, there's a federal law called EMTALA that we have to follow.

So if you present to my emergency room, I have to assess you, I have to treat you.

Money should not be a deterrent for you going to the doctor.

- It was a somber day, a Sunday, as Rolling Fork recalled the tornado.

- May the Lord bless thee and keep thee.

May the Lord make His face shine up on thee and be gracious unto thee.

- In the crowd were friends and loved ones of the victims.

One of them was Charles Stubbs, whose brother, Daryl Purvis, lived in the mobile home park just off Highway 61, along with most of those who were killed.

- You know, you can rebuild, but you can't get that life back, that my brother is gone.

So standing here right now, if my brother was living, he'd be standing right here with me.

And like I said, that's my baby brother.

That's my baby brother.

- On the weekend of the anniversary, [participants applauding] community leaders gathered in the high school gym to say thanks to the many first responders who came to Rolling Fork's aid.

Natalie Perkins was one of those first responders.

She is second in command of the town's emergency management team, besides being the editor of the newspaper.

USA Today named Natalie Mississippi's Woman of the Year for 2023 for serving her community in both positions.

While riding with her through town, looking at the progress of the recovery, Natalie admitted it was very hard doing both jobs well.

- I know what I'm doing is important for the recovery of Rolling Fork, but for the people in my community, I feel like I haven't done what they needed me to do, as far as being their voice as the newspaper.

That's what my job has been, is to be the voice of the community and to keep them informed of everything.

And I feel like I just can't.

I can't do it all.

- Yeah.

- And that bothers me.

It really does.

[Natalie chuckling] That's what keeps me awake at night.

- I'm sure Iowa is a wonderful place, but they don't write books about Iowa.

[audience laughing] You know?

They really don't.

They write books about this place where we all are from.

[sentimental music] Back in March, I was invited by the Lord Delta Partnership to speak in Anguilla, five miles up the road from Rolling Fork.

It was a fine evening in a lovely old church.

It gave me a chance to be among friends, most of whom I had known since childhood.

It was sweet recalling the place where we all grew up.

Rolling Fork, in my memory, is family and playmates, times and places that were so familiar and comforting.

So much of that was lost, [sentimental music] like the sanctuary of the Episcopal Church that has stood in its place by the creek since 1924.

It is being rebuilt.

The marker that honored blue's legend, Muddy Waters, our most favorite native son, was knocked down by the tornado.

Now, it's back, but so much cannot be replaced.

Robert Stein, who photographs The Delta, sent me this video of the town as it was before March 24th, 2023.

The trees alongside the creeks were glorious.

Now, most of them are gone.

My friend, Charles Weissinger, lost three pecan trees in his yard.

He believed they were 600 years old.

The native people sat in their shade.

The footbridges that crossed the creeks probably won't be built back, but they're remembered in a painting by Charles's wife, Anne.

That Sunday evening after the memorial service, a group of Mennonites filed [choir singing hymn] into the First Baptist Church.

They were among the many volunteers who came to Rolling Fork to help.

Inside the church, the men of their choir sang.

♪ I will be ♪ [worship music] [bells chiming] Just after eight o'clock, the bell rang out from the church tower that had been blown off the roof that night.

[bells chiming] One deep note sounded for each of those who died in the tornado.

[choir singing hymn] [worship music] For me, there's one image that stands out most from the past year.

It's this old tree with a piece of tin wrapped around a branch.

[lighthearted music] In the right light, the tin looks almost like a flag.

On the way out of town that Sunday, we stopped for one more picture.

Barbara Windham joined us.

She had been looking at the tree too.

She sees a message in it.

- God put that up there.

And I say, and winds, high winds came through since then, and I say, it's still there.

I said, when God put something there in place, it stays there.

That's where it be, right there.

It's been there ever since He put it there.

And He sure did.

That's my belief.

That's my belief.

There in.

[camera lens clicking] [lighthearted music] - Joining me now is my friend, George Larrimore.

He and I started working on this project the Saturday morning after the tornado struck.

- You know, I remember that Saturday, and you and I both woke up to the live cameras and the live trucks in Rolling Fork.

- Yeah.

- In the place that you grew up, in a place that I knew pretty well too.

I remember you and I both said that, you know, "Look at the drones.

Where are you?

Where are you?"

I always wondered, what did you think when you saw that shot?

- I had no idea where they were.

I mean, this is my little tiny town, and I had no idea what I was looking at.

Everything was gone.

- The courthouse was damaged.

The downtown, which includes so many spots that I'd heard about- - Yeah.

- was gone.

Chuck's was gone.

- Yeah.

- I mean, Chuck's is a place that everybody in the Delta knows.

- That's right.

- All of that is literally gone.

And it was a little hard to comprehend.

I know it was for you.

- Yeah, it was.

I think I was in such a state of shock that it was really hard for me to really gather myself that first day we went down there.

You know, you've been down there, you did most of the boots on the ground work.

You shot all of these interviews, and you got to know people.

Where are we now with this story?

- 75% of all the structures in the community were gone.

- Right.

- Either damaged or had to be torn down, because they were in such bad condition.

- Right.

- Businesses and residences.

- Right.

- Now, all of the businesses that were damaged have been repaired, except for two that won't come back, and one that's about to open.

So that's pretty good.

- Yeah.

- In terms of housing, they're about, I was told recently, 75 houses have been rebuilt- - Okay.

- in the community.

That's a lot of houses- - Yeah.

- in a small town like that.

And I think we should stress that a lot of the work that was done on those houses was done by nonprofit organizations, faith-based organizations- - Right.

- who really stepped up and said, "Let's do this thing.

Let's get these people back at home."

- And these people came in, like they started coming in that night- - That night.

- To help the people of Rolling Fork.

- That night.

That night, that's right.

- And they came from everywhere, right?

- 25 different states at last count.

- Wow.

- One thing that's important, or there are so many, but the population is something that we really need to think about.

Before this tornado, the town was approximately 1,800 people.

- Mhm.

- I was talking to a fellow the other day who thinks that it's around 1,300 to 1,400 now.

But another thing that's important, that's also part of that same equation, is the hospital.

- Yeah.

- We were told, if everyone has just seen this show, we were told by several people, if the hospital just does not come back, then you can turn out the lights on Rolling Fork.

- Yeah.

- Because it's a big employer, and it's a place that's a quality of life thing.

Here we are two years later, and the hospital is in a state of limbo, because it's primarily up to FEMA, I understand, to decide whether to rebuild- - Right.

- or to repair, depending on how much damage they determined that there was.

- Sure.

- The nursing home has reopened- - Okay.

which is a part of the hospital complex.

- Yeah.

- It's back, it's operating.

- Right.

- The hospital, they still haven't decided.

That's FEMA.

FEMA, and this is a different political climate than it was two years ago.

- Right.

- We don't know that that's gonna have any effect on the decision.

- Sure.

- But there's a decision to be made, and that decision will determine a lot in terms of looking at how this community is two years from now, five years from now, 10 years from now.

- Yeah.

And talking about the residents and housing, you know, we found out that, what, 68% of the people who lived there were renters.

- Renters, right.

- So they're trying to turn that around.

Some of the nonprofits have given houses to people.

They're holding the payments within something that these people can afford.

- Right.

- And then, how about like the FEMA trailers and things?

I didn't know that they had to go back.

- Oh, yeah.

FEMA's not, you don't, they're not handing you something for free- - Yeah.

- when they give you a trailer, when they put a trailer for you to live in.

- Uh-huh.

- And that they are on kind of a lease that lasts for a year and a half after the date that a disaster declaration has been declared.

- Right.

- That there's 18 months that you have that trailer to live in for nothing.

But after that, there's an extension.

That extension is just about to play out as we're talking today.

- Yeah.

- And those trailers that are not purchased by the people who've been living there, or purchased by someone, are gonna go back to the federal government.

- Wow.

- Again, but to talk about the upside of this, is the community foundation.

There is a community foundation in North Mississippi that stepped up and purchased, I'm told 20 to 30 of those FEMA trailers and are just giving them to the people who live there.

- Right.

- Again, a lot of this that we've seen that's so positive at the time, and in the year since, and in the two years since, and in the time going forward, is from people who just came in and said, "What can we do?"

- Right.

- You know?

And I thought, many times, I thought, if you wanna see America at its best, a natural disaster and the reaction to it.

- Right.

- Because this is America at his best.

People are just saying, "How can I help?"

We heard that story a hundred times.

- Yeah.

- We heard it once, and it's still going on down there.

- Yeah.

Well, I just personally want to thank you.

I mean, you and I have been friends a long, long time, but thank you for caring enough about my hometown to do this.

And I think you're an honorary citizen of Rolling Fork now.

[George chuckling] - Well, I appreciate it.

It's been a really great experience.

I hate to say the words really great in association with a tornado that- - Yeah.

- That did so much damage to people's lives.

But I learned so much from the resilience of people, and that's a shopworn phrase, but people would just keep getting back up- - Yeah.

- and keep trying to help each other- - Yeah.

- every single day.

- Yeah.

- And you've met a lot of those people in watching this show.

- Right.

- And it's for real.

- Yeah.

Thank you.

- Thank you.

- What happened in Rolling Fork could happen anywhere.

And there are valuable lessons to be learned from the stories we've heard.

Are we prepared for disaster?

And can we come together when it does happen?

We want to thank WKNO for making this time possible, and we'd like to thank Mississippi Public Broadcasting for giving us their support when we started.

I'm Willy Bearden.

Thank you all for watching.

[enchanted music] [enchanted music] [enchanted music] [enchanted music] [enchanted music] [enchanted music]