Rolling Fork (United States) (AFP) – The brick house was pulverized. All that remains of her is the floor littered with personal belongings, a pink backpack, a miraculously standing shampoo bottle. After the violent tornado that devastated Rolling Fork, Mississippi, the inhabitants took the measure of the upheaval of their lives.
On this hot and sunny Sunday, under a sky still blue before possible new storms, they began to arrive in the morning in the middle of gutted houses and deformed trees. To assess the damage and salvage belongings, and also because this debris represents all that remains of their lives before Friday night, when the tornado hit, killing at least 25 people in Mississippi, including 13 here.
“Twenty years of my life gone,” says Shirley Stamps, 58, in front of her bed covered in dust and bits of wood.
“But God be praised, God be praised,” she adds fervently. “We are here, we are alive”.
– Hell –
That evening, she told AFP, she had just finished dinner with her family and was regarding to put on her nightgown when a disturbing wind was heard. The noise swells, the threat becomes more precise. Her granddaughter taking a bath, Shirley Stamps begins to knock on her door for the family to take refuge in the bathroom, which is considered solid.
“We all got into it and got on the ground,” she says. Sunday, with the exception of part of the facade, the bathroom was the only room in the house still standing.
On the other side of the street, Shakeria Brown, looking somber, inspects her car, crushed by a tree. Her house almost collapsed.
“I was sitting on the sofa with my eight-month-old daughter when the windows started shaking,” the 26-year-old said. Then “they exploded”, “the roof gave way above me and it started to rain”.
She then covers her head with a blanket to try to shelter herself with her baby somehow, until a neighbor comes to get her out of this hell.
What will she do now? For now, she is staying with friends. But she will have to find a solution, because “it will take forever” to clear, clean.
Besides, she says, “the owner is not going to rebuild”.
– “Nothing” –
The latter, who owns several houses in this predominantly black and low-income neighborhood, confirms.
“What can we do?” says the African-American man who prefers to remain anonymous, observing the devastation with a stoic air. Insurance will not give enough to rebuild in this region, “one of the poorest in the United States”, he says.
Unless the federal state intervenes, “it will be cleaned up and then it will remain empty,” he concludes.
Kimberly Berry, 46, works in a catfish processing plant and lives between Rolling Fork and Silver City, another town devastated by the tornado.
His house was flattened by the storm, which washed away the walls and the roof, leaving only the wooden floor, a chest of drawers, a tub lying on its side, various personal belongings strewn regarding.
The tornado was selective. For long kilometres, large areas are untouched. Next door is devastation.
The insurance won’t cover anything, she told AFP, because she built on flood-prone land. So she plans to buy a mobile home.
Along with her sisters, sitting under an umbrella while someone distributes water bottles and sandwiches, they all want to send a message to the federal government.
“Send us help. We need help,” said Dorthy Berry, 65.
But “don’t be sorry, darling” launches this teacher to a journalist who barely had time to take refuge in a church before the disaster.
“I am full of gratitude. We are still alive, that’s all that matters,” she insists.
