HATTIESBURG, Miss.—Rain was pouring down in the pre-dawn darkness, and the wind was picking up as Darryl McMorris ran for his daughters’ bedroom. The windows started blowing out as he dove on top of his girls, grabbing one under each arm as he tried to protect them.
“As soon as I did that it seemed like we were flying in the air,” he recalled Saturday. Walls began to collapse and the house began to blow apart as his daughters screamed. But he held on tight.
When the tornado finished ripping its way through their Hattiesburg home he and the two girls were under a wall. Their house appears to be a total loss, bedding tossed 50 feet into a tree and their oldest daughter asking, “Is God mad at us?” But they’re alive.
“I don’t see how we survived this,” said his fiancee Shanise.
Across the tornado’s devastating path, families were taking stock of the damage, hugging friends and neighbors, grieving over the remains of their homes and in many cases mourning those killed.
Authorities said four people died when the twister touched down around 3:35 a.m. Saturday. Shannon Hefferan, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, says damage reports indicate it touched down in Lamar County before ripping into Forrest County and skirting just south of downtown Hattiesburg—the state’s fourth largest city.
The tornado continued across the Leaf River into neighboring Petal. Emergency management officials said the severe weather also damaged Perry and Jones counties.
Teams are out assessing the damage. Already they know that the tornado was accompanied by a deluge of rain—3.42 inches over a six to seven hour period Saturday morning—Hefferan said.
And the bad weather isn’t over yet.
