How the Clarion Ledger covered the devastating Rolling Fork, MS, tornado in March of 2023

Rolling Fork is a town well-steeped in adversity. The community of fewer than 2,000 residents in the Mississippi Delta has witnessed flood and economics devastate its community before.

Nothing, though, had hardened it for the EF-4 tornado that ripped through the town after dark on March 24, 2023, destroying homes, businesses and claiming 15 lives in town and more than 20 across the state. Wind speeds were reported just shy of 200 mph, and nothing stood in its three-quarters-of-a-mile-wide wake.

The Clarion Ledger sprinted into action to cover the impact to this town, roughly an hour and half’s drive to the north of the Jackson area, at least that is when you could drive at all through roads torn apart or covered in debris. Before dawn, the Clarion Ledger’s team of photographers and reporters was in place.

With a live blog populated by every news and sports reporter the team had, the Clarion Ledger provided the most news gathering of any team on the ground. Our original main bar captured the sweep of the storm that the National Weather Service ultimately determined was the worst to hit its Jackson, Mississippi, coverage area in more than a half century.

About 80% to 85% of the homes in Rolling Fork had severe damage or were destroyed in the tornado. 

The Clarion Ledger’s team immediately began to tell the stories of the people impacted, while chronicling the rising death toll and putting into perspective where the storm stood among the many calamities the state has endured. Compelling gallery after gallery along with video, daily live blogs and drone footage helped readers understand the devastation and the recovery. We told readers how they could help victims.

And we turned attention to the area residents’ struggles and the communities’ resiliency, Clarion Ledger staff members:

• Told a tale of coincidence and fortune — that of the local school’s prom, which no doubt saved countless lives. Chuck’s Dairy Bar, the local hangout would have been full of the city’s high school children. It always was on Saturday night. But that night was prom night, and the teens were a few miles away, enough to be out of harm’s way. Chuck’s Dairy Bar was completely leveled. The teens, had they been at their normal haunt, would have likely died. When they got word of the storm, the teens rushed to town, still dressed in their tuxes and prom dresses, and worked to help survivors out of the rubble.
• Chronicled the story of an 81-year-old minister who had been struck by a tornado twice — in just three months, losing both homes.
• Wrote about area residents who wore many hats, including the Rolling Fork mayor who also served as the local funeral director, overwhelmed by grief amid duty; and the long, torturous days of Natalie Perkins, editor of the local weekly newspaper, who also sat on the emergency management agency board the the county in which Rolling Fork was hit.
• Focused on the state of church services, an important component of the fabric of the Delta community, the day after the tornado and into the week.
• In the days that followed, told the story of people reunited with their family photos, some windblown more than 100 miles from their scrapbooks to where they were recovered.
• Explored the challenges of the local hospital, like many others in the Delta, facing closure amid financial pressure but one that saved lives after the storms.
• Wrote about the task of debris removal, the impact of the storm on local businesses and on sports throughout the state.

By the week’s end, Clarion Ledger staff members attended heart-wrenching funeral services, such as the one for 2-year-old Aubree Green in nearby Silver City, which was also decimated by the tornado that ripped through the Delta and into the city of Amory in Northeast Mississippi.

Days after the storm, President Joe Biden visited the Rolling Fork, solemnly reading the names of the 13 who died the day of the tornado. That death toll would rise. Clarion Ledger staffer Ross Reily, who had not stopped all week, was the local pool reporter.

We noted in a separate story that Biden was not the first American president to visit this Delta city. More than a century earlier, President Theodore Roosevelt visited Rolling Fork on a bear hunt, and when he refused to kill a bear that had been tied up and clubbed for him, believing it unsporting, editorial cartoonists featured the president and the bear. Thus was spawned — the Teddy Bear.

Until March 2023, if you had heard of Rolling Fork at all, that is what you knew of the city. The Clarion Ledger made sure that the stories of its people, its struggles and its heroes, were not lost.

Mississippi Drone footage of Rolling Fork tornado damage

The small Delta town of Rolling Fork suffered widespread devastation after a tornado hit Friday., MEMA reports at least 25 dead across the state.