ROLLING FORK, Miss.— Martha Morris and James Morris did not think it would take five months after a devastating tornado hit Rolling Fork, Miss., on March 24, for the Federal Emergency Management Agency to deliver their temporary housing unit. But that is their reality.
Still, they are not frustrated with anybody, as Martha Morris said it takes time for progress to happen.
“Progress is being made; it just takes a process, that’s all,” Martha Morris told the Mississippi Free Press on Aug. 10.
The retired couple lost their rental home and two vehicles during the storm, so they have been staying with their daughter and grandchild in a two-bedroom brick apartment in the northern part of town.
Temporary housing has been taking months to arrive in the town; some people have received their units, while others are still waiting. Mayor Eldridge Walker said private landowners got their homes first because they had space to put the units. The Morrises are scheduled to receive their mobile home when the dirt for the lot arrives, which should be soon, they told the Mississippi Free Press on Aug. 29.
The couple did not own their land before the tornado, but they recently bought the lot where their home once sat just months before. Their trailer will be on that land, and Martha Morris said she was happy to move back to her neighborhood.
The Morrises are two of about 300 people, or 16% of the Rolling Fork population, who were displaced after the tornado with 17 people killed. Sharkey County Emergency Management Agency Deputy Director Natalie Perkins said 233 people were displaced as of Aug. 16. Renters have faced an especially long wait to get temporary housing because of the lack of land for non-owners.
While residents wait for their temporary homes, some are living in hotels while others are staying with family members or friends—five months after the devastating tornado that destroyed their town.
Relocating and Rebuilding
Rolling Fork sits in the western portion of the state in the rural Mississippi Delta and is the county seat of Sharkey County. Its population
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