Bogue Chitto family had minutes to shelter before tornado hit mobile home park

At least 17 people were hurt, and officials reported no immediate deaths. The storms damaged nearly 500 homes across the state, with some of the worst destruction in Lincoln and Lamar counties.

At the Wash Trailer Park in Bogue Chitto, power lines hung low over the debris Thursday morning. Utility poles leaned over piles of insulation, sheet metal and splintered wood. Some mobile homes still had walls. Most had been ripped apart down to the blocks.

Mia Figueroa, a 28-year-old stay-at-home mom, lives there with her husband, Jacob Hickman, and their two children.

Their home was heavily damaged, but still standing.

Figueroa said she is usually calm when severe weather moves through.

“When bad weather comes, I’m calm, cool, collected,” Figueroa said. “I’m the person like, ‘It can never be me.’”

Luckily, her friend Amber Revels was watching the storm closely from her father-in-law’s house in Summit, about 15 minutes away.

Revels had Figueroa’s location pulled up on her phone while she followed the storm’s path across Lincoln County on her laptop. She said she was reading road names and trying to figure out how much time Figueroa’s family had left.

“I was like, ‘You need to get in your closet right now. You need to go. You need to move. Don’t hesitate,’” Revels said.

Figueroa said Revels sent her a screenshot showing the tornado was moving directly toward them. With only a few minutes to spare, Figueroa and Hickman sprang into action.

“We ran into the bathroom and we made it and closed the door in the nick of time,” Figueroa said. “We got down, put the pillows over our heads and that 30 seconds felt like the longest 30 seconds of my life.”

The couple’s children, ages one and seven, were surprisingly calm, Figueroa said. She was screaming. Hickman stood over the tub to shield his family.

“The whole time I prayed, ‘God, keep my babies and my wife safe,’” Hickman said. “But you see, we on two legs, none of us are scaved up.”

Officials say at least a dozen people were hurt at the trailer park. Roads were blocked by trees and debris after the storm. Before the full emergency response could get into the park, people nearby started cutting their way through.

Norman Odom, 23, moves mobile homes for a living. He said he and a few other men were clearing a path along Highway 51 when local law enforcement arrived.

“One of the police officers told us, ‘You’re on search and rescue. Go search the trailer park,’” Odom said. “So we started from one corner, we worked all the way around.”

Odom said they helped move residents to the park’s office, where people were being checked for injuries. Some had cuts, broken bones or other minor injuries.

“We started putting ribbons on their arm,” Odom said. “Green meant they were Ok. Yellow was just kind of be cautious with them. And red was triage immediately. Go. ER.”

Lincoln County Sheriff’s Department Capt. Andrew Montgomery said his department also used a drone to search the area after receiving early reports that people could be missing in the park.

“There was nobody missing,” Montgomery said. “Everybody was accounted for, thank God.”

By daylight, the search had turned into salvage.

Residents walked through the park, pulling out clothes, papers, pictures and anything else that could still be saved. Figueora and Hickman still had a place to search, though their roof was damaged, windows were busted and the home was left leaning.

Figueora said many of her children’s keepsakes survived.

“I have everything that came with me home from the hospital,” Figueora said. “I have everything from pre-K, everything from kindergarten, all his school pictures and all of that.”

Others had far less to recover.

“This is gonna be a long trial right here,” Montgomery said. “This is a lot of rebuilding and having to start over for a lot of families. You’re looking at everybody’s livelihood is gone, and that’s hard.”

But Montgomery says two decades in Lincoln County has taught him the community will bounce back.

This county is great for coming together,” Montgomery said. “We've been known to give our shirts off our backs for each other.”

Throughout the park Thursday, people kept showing up. Friends. Family. Churches. Figueroa said staff from her son’s school called to check on him. 

Revels says it was amazing, and bittersweet, to see so many volunteers out helping where they could.

"It's sad that it takes a tragedy to see that sense of community as often as we do,” Revels said.

Meteorologists reported at least three tornadoes touched down during the storms. State emergency officials said Lamar County reported about 275 damaged homes, Lincoln County reported at least 200 damaged homes and Lawrence County reported about 10 to 12 damaged homes.

For Figueroa, the full impact of the tragedy still had not fully set in Thursday afternoon. She was focused on what came next: salvaging clothes, important paperwork and mementos of her children’s lives.

“We’re so blessed that we got to keep some of our stuff,” Figueroa said.

Hickman said the family still has more to sort through. He believes his prayers were heard and answered, and he is grateful they have anything to come back to. 

“We get to come home to a little bit of stuff,” Hickman said. “It ain't everything, but it's a little bit.”