ROLLING FORK, Miss. — Carolyn Washington was watching the news in her trailer Friday when a cousin called with a warning that wasn’t on TV: A tornado was about to touch down.
“If I had been in there, I wouldn’t be talking to you,” she told a reporter.
Unlike her, other mobile home residents in this town of 2,000 weren’t able to make it out before tornadoes tore through Mississippi and Alabama on Friday, killing at least 26 people. Behind the restaurant where Washington and others found shelter, the storm decimated a trailer park of about 30 homes. Seven or eight people died there, said Terri Harden, who owns the land the homes sat on, now covered in a mess of debris.
That kind of devastation is typical for areas with mobile homes, residents of which are 15 to 20 times more likely to be killed in a tornado than those in a permanent structure, the National Weather Service estimates.
Across the United States, tornado-related deaths in mobile homes have been increasing in recent years as more of these temporary structures pop up to accommodate population growth. While mobile homes are typically anchored to a foundation, trailers are on wheels. Colloquially, however, many people use the terms interchangeably. Both mobile homes and trailers can be relocated, making them nonpermanent in any particular location. Although building standards have become more stringent over the decades, many old homes are grandfathered into outdated guidelines or are not properly anchored to the ground.
Even the sturdiest buildings were no match for the tornado that devastated a 60-mile stretch of Mississippi, including Rolling Fork. The National Weather Service gave it a preliminary rating of 4 out of 5 on the Enhanced Fujita scale, estimating winds of up to 170 mph.
In Sharkey County, Miss., one of the areas hit hardest, mobile homes make up over a fifth of the housing stock, according to U.S. census data. Overall, the state has the country’s fourth-greatest per capita density of mobile homes. Roughly 19 percent of its population lives below the poverty rate.
“The disaster isn’t just about the tornado,” said Stephen Strader, a hazards and disaster geographer who teaches at Villanova University. “It’s about the demographics and everything that’s put into play beforehand.”
Little warning
Mary Shelby, another Rolling Fork resident, survived despite being in her mobile home at the time of the storm.
“I didn’t have time to get out because by the time it came on the news that it was heading this way, it was already hitting,” said the 63-year-old, a town resident since 1995. “I didn’t hear no sirens or nothing … It was just this huge sound up in the sky. ‘Woooo-woooo’! And then stuff just started falling.”
Others were not so lucky. Not far from Shelby sat an upturned mobile home that toppled from its foundation Friday night, killing an occupant. Emergency personnel removed the body Saturday morning as devastated neighbors watched.
There are steps that mobile home communities can take to better withstand storms. Researchers recommend having concrete foundations, anchor bolts and hurricane ties to secure structures, and adding tornado shelters or safe rooms. Many mobile homes are spread throughout rural areas, with the nearest tornado shelter too far away to reach when a warning arrives with minutes to spare.
“The question is, do they fix the roads that they have or do they build storm shelters?” Strader said. “That’s what a lot of these counties are faced with.”
Harden, the owner of the trailer park near Chuck’s, said its residents are among the poorest of a largely impoverished community. It’s unclear where they could have found safety, she said, given the tornado was strong enough to destroy the decades-old restaurant and so many other permanent structures.
“They didn’t have a chance in their homes,” said Harden, who lives on the other side of Rolling Fork. “How are you going to protect from that?”
What mobile homeowners can do
For now, people in mobile homes should get a weather radio and leave as soon as their area is under a tornado watch, rather than waiting for a more urgent warning, said Walker Ashley, an atmospheric scientist and disaster geographer at Northern Illinois University.
“If your house shows up on a truck, you don’t want to be there when a tornado comes down the street,” he said.
When Friday’s tornadoes were approaching, Erwin Macon’s cellphone vibrated with an alert: Take shelter immediately. But before he could act, the trailer he had called home for just over a month started shaking.
Macon, 60, could feel the mobile home being lifted up from its foundation. A rug blew on top of him, which he figures helped save his life. When the blowing stopped, the floor was about all that was left. Around it, other trailers were reduced to rubble.
“I heard cries in the dark asking for help, but you didn’t know which direction to go in,” Macon said. “I was mostly in a daze from getting hit with stuff.”
Not far from his trailer is the house Macon and his family grew up in. It, too, was destroyed in the storms.
“There was no safe place,” Macon said.
Iati reported from Washington.