A year after Rolling Fork tornado, town is still digging out. See how recovery is going

At 8:03 Sunday night, the carillon chimes at First Baptist Church in Rolling Fork will play the hymn "Great Is Thy Faithfulness" to mark the moment exactly one year ago when an EF-4 wedge tornado began to rip a nearly mile-wide scar through this small town in the Mississippi Delta and obliterated virtually everything along historic U.S. 61.

It will be the first chime played by the new carillon after the old one was destroyed by the March 24, 2023 tornado that ripped across Mississippi. A new carillon and steeple were delivered and scheduled to be installed this week.

It marks one more step in the rebuilding of Rolling Fork, which commemorated the anniversary with several events leading up until Sunday.

The storm destroyed nearly 300 homes, many businesses and claimed 15 lives in the town of then 1,800 people. Wind speeds were reported just shy of 200 mph.

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Today, unofficial estimates are the population has shrunk to around 1,200 people as so many people were left with no place to live and no way to make a living. Those who are left are building back in what officials at the Federal Emergency Management Agency say will likely be a three-year process. Even then, no one really knows if Rolling Fork in Sharkey County will ever get back to 1,800 people in the city limits.

"The citizens, the people are rebuilding lots of homes and businesses in Rolling Fork," former Rolling Fork Mayor and former president of the Bank of Anguilla Fred Miller, who lives in Rolling Fork. He is also now the chairman of the board of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas. "The non-profits are very much involved in making sure that the town comes back."

One of those non-profits is Rolling Fork Rising, of which Miller is a member of the board directors. It has acquired 18 home sites that have been torn down to the slab and another 18 acres of land in the hopes of building as many as 100 new homes with money and materials that are donated and with the help of outside volunteers, who continue to make their mark on the community.

"We have six new foundations poured and funding for another 10 new houses this year. We know we are that far along," Miller said. "We just got word that a former resident of Rolling Fork, who now lives in Atlanta, is going to make a sizeable contribution. So, while it may not be as fast as everyone would like, we are moving forward. That is positive."

Despite FEMA recently approving nearly $3 million to reimburse the city of Rolling Fork for the replacement of signs and the repair of roads, Miller believes more could be done by the City of Rolling Fork.

"I am disappointed in city government," Miller said. "We have spent a lot of money on things, in my mind, that are wasteful. I understand. I probably would have been overwhelmed at the scope of the disaster and I would have had a hard time, but I think the first thing I would have done was to find someone smarter than me who could help move things along. We needed as a city to hire people that had a resume going back to something like (Hurricane) Katrina that has handled this type of situation before and make sure we weren't falling behind in the process. I don't think that kind of thing has happened."

Rolling Fork Mayor Eldridge Walker did not respond to requests from the Clarion Ledger for comments on this story.

Rolling Fork rising

Rolling Fork Rising is a nonprofit with a vision to help rebuild homes in Rolling Fork, especially for renters. Approximately 68% of the residents of Rolling Fork prior to the tornado were renters. There are several government and other programs created to help homeowners rebuild, but very limited opportunities to help renters.

Rolling Fork Rising is identifying former renters for their homes. The buyers are getting the homes at a reduced price, plus they are getting them at 0% interest.

"It really is a chance of a lifetime," Miller said. "We just really hope there are enough people here in town to take advantage of this by the time we get finished."

Emily Carter, a volunteer with Rolling Fork Rising, helps coordinate volunteers who come into town to help. While First Baptist Church is not associated with Rolling Fork Rising, it does donate space on their second floor for people to stay, in bunk-bed style, while they are in town. The church can house up to 50 people at a time.

"This all started because of the renters. There just wasn't anywhere for them to go," Carter said. "There aren't any government programs for that. FEMA doesn't help renters."

Most of the landlords were not going to build back homes that were completely destroyed, but they did repair many houses that were just damaged.

"So, taking care of these renters is really the key for the future of the town," Carter said. "Without the people, there is no town. There's no schools or churches or the businesses or anything else. So, our hope is to get people in houses just as quickly as we can with the resources we have."

Chuck's Dairy Bar

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In one of the more amazing statistics that have come from the storm, along U.S. 61, the true business corridor for the town, every business that was either destroyed or damaged, except for one, is back in business.

The only one that hasn't opened is Chuck's Dairy Bar, but owner Tracy Harden said the local landmark will be up and running by the end of April. She has been running the restaurant from food truck, basically since the dust settled after the storm.

The new building is up and stoves and griddles and vent hoods are being installed as well as furniture after a months-long delay in getting a utility hookup completed.

But Harden is grateful just for the opportunity to be able to open again.

"The first night we open, we will honor those people we love who aren't with us any more," Harden said as she wiped tears away. "We will be thankful for our lives, thankful for how far we have come. Just the fact that we didn't even start putting our building up since September, we have come a long way."

Harden and her staff hid from the storm last year in the restaurant cooler while two patrons hid in the bathrooms.

With that knowledge, Master-Bilt, the refrigerator company, donated $35,000 worth of a cooler system for the new Chuck's with double the capacity of the old system. The old cooler had been in place since 1977 when the last Chuck's building was built.

"When they saw that we had a bigger slab for the restaurant, they gave us more room for the cooler," Harden said. "It's installed, it's cooling, and we can start putting groceries in it pretty soon."

Rebuilding Chuck's Dairy Bar offers a beacon of hope for the community as well, since Chuck's has been around longer than most people can remember and many people hope it will still be around for years to come.

It opened in 1964 with then-owner Chuck Henderson at the helm of what would one day become a legendary eatery.

No more storms for Brother Bob

Rev. Bob Gilliland was sitting in the parsonage of Deer Creek Baptist Church that Friday night a year ago watching a re-run of "Gunsmoke" when his son called.

"He said to turn on the news. 'There's a storm coming,'" Gilliland said. "So (his wife) Betty and I went down the hall and sat in the bathroom. Well, she sat and I paced in and out into the hallway like you can imagine and old preacher would."

It was the second tornado he and his wife had lived through in just a few months. In fact, the only reason Gilliland was even in harm's way at the parsonage last year was because his home just a few miles down the road in Anguilla was a total loss from the EF-2 tornado, and he was forced to live in Rolling Fork.

This year, Gilliland, now 81, is sporting a cane after a couple of falls, but he still is in the pulpit every Sunday morning. Despite, the drop off in the population of Rolling Fork, attendance is only down a few people each week.

"Of course, if we had double the amount of people every Sunday, I would still be wanting more," Gilliland said. "We have an older group. Many are still scared of (COVID-19), but we go and visit and minister to everyone. We are working hard."

Gilliland is back in Anguilla living in a new home on the footprint of his original home, next door to his son. The church still hasn't starting rebuilding the parsonage, but he said it will be a priority in the next year.

"We are happy to be alive. I guess I am meant to be here," he said, adding that the Lord has "certainly had every chance to take me. So, as long as I am on this Earth, I am going to keep moving forward. I guess there's a lot of us like that here in Rolling Fork and Anguilla."

If you have a story idea, Ross Reily can be reached by email at rreily@gannett.com or at 601-573-2952. You can follow him on Twitter @GreenOkra1.

This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: Rolling Fork MS tornado damage one year later