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Rough Skies Ahead: The 2011 New Wren EF3 Tornado

[00:00:00] Hey everyone, Gabriel here. You’ve probably noticed that Chaser Chat took a bit of a hiatus over the last six months or so, and I am beyond excited to be back. It won’t just be my voice hosting shows now though. I’ve added an entire team of podcasters to the Chaser Chat roster, combined with an incredible support staff who will be helping out with editing, managing social media, graphic design, merch, and more.

[00:00:24] We’ll be releasing three episodes per week from here on out. I’m placing a bet on Chaser Chat and I’m putting my money where my mouth is. That’s where you, the listener, come in. At the end of this episode, I’ll run through all of the ways that you can support Chaser Chat so please consider helping out if you enjoy the show.

[00:00:41] Alright, that’s enough of that. Let’s get into the episode.

[00:00:47] Meteorologists in the Deep South have had their work cut out for them on April 27th.

[00:00:52] By midday, multiple strong to violent tornadoes have touched down, some of which caused destruction of the power grid within Alabama and parts of Mississippi, resulting in the loss of power for most of Alabama.

[00:01:02] Meteorologists in Jackson and Memphis are now actively watching one specific supercell forming in central Mississippi that is rapidly rotating. What’s worse, the towns that are in the path of this supercell have already been devastated by an EF3 tornado earlier on that morning. Though the rapidly rotating supercell would produce this little known EF3, the supercell would overall become infamous less than an hour later by producing the Smithville, Mississippi EF5. My name is Kay, and I am a certified interpretive guide by trade who specializes in teaching the public about the natural world. Today we are taking a look at the Anchor-Chapel Grove-New Wren EF3 tornado.

[00:01:37] Welcome to Rough Skies Ahead. A special shout out to Gabriel Harber and Chaser Chat for featuring this episode. In the days leading up to the 2011 super outbreak, meteorologists have been seeing signs that the ingredients for a historic tornado outbreak would come together between April 25th and April 27th.

[00:01:54] Specifically, they believe that the main event would hit after midday the 27th. I would like to give a brief summary of these ingredients. If anybody wants a more inclusive and detailed explanation, I have done an entire deep dive on the meteorological aspects of this event over at Rough Skies Ahead, so definitely listen to that episode.

[00:02:11] I will link that in the podcast description for anyone interested. But it seems like the ingredients for a severe weather event like this one come up every generation or so. Previous to this, it was the 1974 Super Outbreak. Less than 50 years later, however, meteorologists are now seeing the signs of history repeating itself, this time stationed over the deep South.

[00:02:29] To the South, over the Gulf of Mexico, a warm front begins moving northward, bringing warm, moist air to the region. To the North, a cold front is now moving southward from Kentucky, bringing cool, dry air into this region. A negatively tilted trough has been noted with this event, and once they have all collided, the ingredients are now able to fuel long-tracked violent storms all day. Adding into the concern meteorologists have, there would be no notable failure modes for this event, meaning that once the storms got going, they would have little to no reason to stop.

[00:02:58] The 2011 Super Outbreak has been noted to have possessed an atmosphere that was one of the most conducive to violent weather in recorded history. What meteorologists really didn’t realize was just how grossly the system would end up overperforming. The outbreak technically began on April 25th, where multiple tornadoes touched down in the Arklo-Texas region, as the system moved east into Mississippi and Alabama.

[00:03:20] Midnight of April 27th would bring the first of two QLCSs, Which produced multiple strong tornadoes. The second would knock power out to most of Alabama and Mississippi, and overall the outbreak was supposed to be bad, but now with these two systems causing the destruction they did, meteorologists were starting to wonder how much worse the situation could get.

[00:03:39] I do want to take a few minutes to talk about the towns that were affected because this tornado did hit multiple communities in Mississippi and each have their own unique history to talk about. So we’ll start with the town of New Wren, Mississippi.

[00:03:51] The town of New Wren is a small, unincorporated township of Monroe County, originally founded in 1900, where it housed three stores and a local high school. Around this time there was also a place called Wren within the township. Some notable aspects of this town is the town’s lookout tower, which is listed as a historical marker for tourists to come visit.

[00:04:12] Not much happens here, and there is little information to be found online about this town, but I have a feeling that the residents of New Wren love that about this little township.

[00:04:21] The town of Anchor finds its origins in the local railroad. After the railroad going through Houston, Pontac, Ackerman, and Louisville was completed, the Town of Anchor was created alongside the railroad in 1905. The railroad would later go on to merge and become the New Orleans Mobile and Chicago Railroad in 1909.

[00:04:39] After a long history of merges and transitions within this railroad, it was officially abandoned shortly after purchase by the Gulf and Mississippi Railroad Company in 1985. The Town of Anchor remained through all this time. This, like New Wren, is all that is really known about the small township of Anchor.

[00:04:55] Okolona, however, is a city located in the eastern edge of Chickasaw County, with a population of 2, 692 people, according to the 2010 census report. Okolona itself is known for its furniture industry, as well as the Wilson Park Resort. Originally named Rose Hill, until its name was changed the town was renamed to Okolona, as not to be confused with another town also named Rose Hill.

[00:05:17] The town itself was founded in 1850 when a post office was established and the name was formally changed at this time to Okolona named after the Chickasaw warrior Oka-Lua.

[00:05:26] Okolona has a history with the Civil War, as multiple skirmishes between the Union and Confederate soldiers took place in the surrounding areas, including the Battle of Okolona in 1864.

[00:05:36] Moving on to the main event, let’s talk about the tornadoes that impacted these areas. The community of New Wren had already been devastated by an EF3 tornado earlier on in the day, around 1. 30am. This is where our story begins. At 1. 29, April 27th, The residents of New Wren and Eupora began hearing tornado sirens during the first of two squall lines that would move through the region.

[00:05:59] Unbeknownst to the residents, the warning was for an EF3 tornado that was quickly approaching the small towns. Beginning just southwest of Stewart, Mississippi, this first EF3 would touch down at approximately 1. 30 a. m.

[00:06:11] Curving through the countryside, moving northeast, this tornado would begin doing massive tree damage as it went through the rural areas, narrowly missing the small township of Mathiston, Mississippi.

[00:06:22] As the tornado passed north of the town, the first fatality would take place when a tree landed on top of a mobile home. Moving through the rural areas, the tornado would continue to rip trees from the ground and knock over power lines. The tornado careened into Cumberland, Mississippi, where it would cause extensive damage to a local school.

[00:06:37] The damage done to the school would ultimately cause the tornado to be rated its EF3 rating. As the tornado exited Cumberland, the tornado would largely remain over rural areas while northeast. The tornado would then move straight through Egypt, Mississippi at lower intensity. Overall, the notable damage from this initial EF3 tornado would be the damage done to roofs, mobile homes, the extensive tree damage, and also the notable damage that was done to that school in Cumberland.

[00:07:03] The tornado would pass just north of New Wren before dissipating later that day. What was startling to meteorologists is that this tornado, and many others at this time, occurred during a squall line, which is not an event known for producing strong to violent tornadoes. So seeing this EF3 and many others cause devastation in the early morning hours was nothing short of shocking for the National Weather Service.

[00:07:25] Residents of these communities began clearing the rubble throughout the morning of April 27th. As they cleared the rubble, they assumed, like many residents in the Deep South, the worst was over. No one imagined a second, more violent EF3 would cross a similar path 12 hours later. At 1.48pm, the supercell that would go on to produce one of the most devastating tornadoes in Mississippi would first show its power north of Bellafontaine, Mississippi.

[00:07:48] Touching down in rural swaths of land, the tornado would begin doing extensive damage to trees as it moved east-northeast from Webster County into Calhoun County. It is here that there would be an estimated wind speed of 95 mph, which doesn’t sound like much, but remember that this is still enough to begin doing damage to trees and to roll or destroy mobile homes.

[00:08:07] Even the weakest tornadoes can be dangerous in the right circumstances. Moving into Calhoun County, the tornado continues to cause damage to the local forests, but as it crossed into Calhoun County and towards Chickasaw County, the tornado begins to slowly intensify. As the tornado reached the Chickasaw County border, it intensified to its peak intensity of EF3 for the first time.

[00:08:27] Continuing on its northeast path while still going through largely rural areas, the tornado would progress dangerously close to the small town of Anchor, Mississippi. As the tornado crossed Highway 15, the town of Anchor would be in its direct path.

[00:08:39] One fatality would occur here as the tornado moved into the town. As the tornado began tracking through anchor, two mobile homes were destroyed.

[00:08:46] One of these mobile residences was thrown 50 yards from its original location at this time. Passing this initial area, the tornado would widen to 1, 090 yards wide and would now hit the full community of Anchor.

[00:08:57] The tornado would destroy the home of Grady and Susan Barnett. While the Barnetts were fortunately not home at the time, they would go on to tell the Chickasaw Journal, “We rode out Hurricane Katrina in that house. This storm destroyed it in about five minutes.”

[00:09:11] The tornado crossed Highway 389, leaving the community of Anchor in ruins. After crossing the highway towards the south of Sonora, a single story home would be destroyed, leaving one interior wall standing. This would not be the only home that would be destroyed in this area. Multiple other homes were destroyed as the tornado sped through Sonora.

[00:09:29] As the tornado left the outskirts of Sonora, the twister would intensify once more, causing grass scouring to occur alongside the hardwood trees that were being de barked. The Natchez Trace Forest would also be decimated along this area.

[00:09:41] Heading into Dixieland, the tornado went straight over a pig farm, destroying three of the pig houses and tearing the roof off of two others. No pigs were around at this time, so there were no pig fatalities to report.

[00:09:53] However, several trees would blow over onto a mobile home close by, which was actually lucky for the resident as the occupants would note. “Seven trees. That’s what kept the trailer from blowing away while we were in it.” A double wide trailer was destroyed near the pig farm, though the residents had thankfully fled before the tornado hit.

[00:10:11] Though the tornado had briefly weakened at this time, it re-intensified as it tracked through the northern parts of Buena Vista. Three permanent homes were torn down by the tornadic winds, and swaths of grass scouring occurred through this portion of town as well.

[00:10:23] Multiple other residences in the area were damaged , including two homes that were completely swept away in the ferocious winds. The tornado would weaken once more as it continued on its path, now setting its sights on the town of Macedonia and the Pleasant Grove Missionary Baptist Church.

[00:10:37] Despite its weakening, the tornado still tore the church down and damaged multiple homes that stood surrounding it. The tornado would re intensify and was now growing wider with each passing moment.

[00:10:46] The tornado is now speeding towards the town of Okalona, , widening, and intensifying as it progressed towards the community. Just outside of town, surveyors were able to observe mild ground scouring in the bare soil. The tornado, at this point, was insanely powerful, now capable of lifting a mobile home completely from where it stood and tossing it 250 yards from where it once sat.

[00:11:05] impact of the mobile home hitting the ground would leave a deep, noticeable impact mark at its final resting place. Other nearby mobile homes and houses were damaged along the stretch of the tornado’s path, though none were as intense as the thrown mobile home.

[00:11:18] Just outside of Okolona, a brick furniture factory was razed completely to the ground alongside a small home that was swept clean off of its foundation. The tornado’s speed accelerated to 61 miles per hour here, and as the tornado sped up, so did the winds it produced.

[00:11:34] A nearly 40 yard wide swath of damage was created within a field, and ground scouring several inches deep was observed for nearly a mile in this field. As the tornado exited Sonora, the tornado would create forest damage one would really only expect to see in the most powerful tornadoes.

[00:11:50] The trees would be functionally obliterated as the tornado went through the rural countryside, A brick home here was razed to its foundation, with the debris it produced scouring the ground alongside it.

[00:12:00] The tornado careened toward the town of Chapel Grove, now at a half a mile wide. Chapel Grove has little known about the damage done here, but in the Tornado Talk article I will link below, you can see for yourself the devastation that Chapel Grove experienced.

[00:12:13] While the damage indicators here are lacking, we will be chatting about some of the controversy regarding the recovery efforts in Chapel Grove later on in this episode.

[00:12:20] The tornado left the Chapel Grove community in pieces and continued northeast, now setting its sights on the community of New Wren. The tornado would shrink in size to about a quarter of a mile wide, but was still an incredibly strong, high end EF3 tornado. The tornado would roar through the countryside landscapes and began destroying houses as it got into the New Wren Township.

[00:12:40] Several houses were struck as the tornado hit New Wren. Two manufactured homes were functionally obliterated between Smith Drive and Old Wren Road. Another mobile home was thrown 50 yards in the same area and several other residences were also damaged along this stretch. The tornado likely intensified again alongside Highway 45, where more grass scouring was noted along the damaged path.

[00:13:01] Despite this intensification, the tornado would actually weaken to what would be considered EF2 intensity as it crossed the nearby Wren Cemetery Road. Even though the tornado weakened, multiple mobile homes and one permanent house was damaged or destroyed along this path. The tornado rapidly began to weaken as it once more went into the country landscapes. After causing the destruction or devastation of multiple communities in its path, the tornado would finally die off just outside of New Wren, south of Bigbee.

[00:13:29] The relief is short lived, as less than a minute after the tornado would die off, the infamous Smithville EF5 tornado would touch down and begin its reign of terror through the heart of Mississippi. In total, the tornado would be responsible for 4 fatalities, 25 injuries, 110 destroyed homes, and 115 damaged homes.

[00:13:49] And, I know, comparatively, these are small numbers, but please remember we are talking about four people’s families that don’t get to be with them to celebrate Christmas, no longer get to celebrate birthdays with them, and they likely died in some pretty horrific ways. We’re talking about 25 people who were injured, maimed, and may have even resulted in permanent disability.

[00:14:09] 110 families now need to pick up the pieces and literally rebuild their lives. 115 families now need to find the funds to be able to repair their homes. These numbers, while statistically low compared to some of the other tornadoes, especially when you look at the context of this outbreak, do not diminish the pain , and suffering of, the affected communities.

[00:14:27] In the town of Okalona resides the Westbrooks. Frank Westbrook was 83 at the time of the outbreak, and he could hear the tornado as it roared in. The house that he and his wife resided in was hit dead on. As the tornado hit the house, it collapsed right on top of Frank and his wife.

[00:14:42] Frank was able to move his foot under the rubble, which cleared the path to push the rubble off of him and his wife. After The impact, two men came to he and his wife’s aid, rescuing the both of them from what remained of their home.

[00:14:54] The family lost everything, but Frank was smiling as he was interviewed by WTVA, stating, “As long as I had her out of there and safe, everything was all right. As far as losing this,” Frank gestured to what remains of his house. “It was no hassle.” Lynn Davis lived in Okolona and would be described as a great friend, successful businessman, and a Christian who wanted to help others by those who knew him. Upon hearing of the devastation experienced by one of his plant managers from the earlier EF3 tornado, Davis boarded his truck and took off, trailer in tow behind him, to go help those who needed it.

[00:15:28] It was just what Davis would do. Davis was heading south on Alternate Highway 45 to go help his friend, talking on the phone as he drove. As he progressed south, he would remark to his friend, “That looks like a tornado.” These were the last words that Lynn Davis would ever speak. A truck driver traveling behind Davis watched as his truck was lifted by the EF3 tornado.

[00:15:49] But, the human spirit is never one to dim in these situations. There were two notable women who rallied to help provide much needed aid to their neighbors. Their names are Pam Robbins and Antoinette Harrell. We will begin with Harrell’s story.

[00:16:02] Antoinette Harrell is the co founder of the non profit known as Gathering of Hearts. Harrell was given tours of the devastated communities after being contacted by Al White, Executive Administrator and Coordinator for Silent Heroes and Education Reform. White helped Harrell make contact with those in need.

[00:16:17] Harrell helped coordinate and find volunteers to help the Devastated Communities. Pam Robbins was recovering at home from a medical episode watching the news during the outbreak. Despite her physical limitations, Robbins wanted to find some way to help those in need. So, she began asking people for donations, and the donations came flooding in. Clothing, shoes, food, cases of water, all came from people in similar situations who wanted to do something to help those affected by this outbreak. Once she was given the okay by her doctor to leave and head out to the affected areas, she went on her way.

[00:16:48] Originally, Robbins’ plan was to head to Wren and help there, but instead she passed through Chapel Grove. ” I see people sitting on lawn chairs where their houses once used to be. And they’ve set up tents in their yards, and they’re standing on their property to protect what little they have left”, Robbins tells the folks at Tornado Talk.

[00:17:05] She stopped and decided this would be where these donations would go. She began handing out the supplies to residents. The Red Cross had been there the day before, leaving residents some water, but unfortunately very little else, informing them that they would need to talk to the Tupelo office to file paperwork for additional assistance.

[00:17:20] Residents who filed this paperwork were told they’d need to bring things like ID, proof of residency, social security numbers, things like this that, in my opinion, would be difficult to provide if your house was just destroyed by a twister. We’ll discuss this later. After returning from Chapel Grove and hearing stories like this, Robbins felt like she should do something more.

[00:17:39] So she went to social media. The next time she went to Chapel Grove, she was hauling a 16 foot trailer chock full of supplies. She would make trips like this regularly to help the community, later learning that there was another man who was doing something similar, and that the church was also providing two meals a day for displaced residents.

[00:17:57] The experience rocked Robbins. She went home and thoroughly cleaned her tornado shelter in preparation for the potential of severe weather. “It changed my life completely, and I wasn’t even in it. It changed how I thought about being prepared for something like that. It was a very, very humbling experience.”

[00:18:12] I want to briefly touch on something that was brought up by the Chapel Grove residents about the Red Cross and how they handled the recovery. This is entirely my opinion, so take this with a grain of salt, and I normally don’t like to talk about things like this and bring my opinion into something like this because I feel like sticking to the facts is usually better, and I just feel like sticking my nose in things like this is not usually my forte, but this caught my attention heavily and I wanted to talk about it.

[00:18:37] I can’t imagine what the residents of Chapel Grove in particular went through with this tornado, only to then be told that in order to receive any kind of aid from an agency like the Red Cross, they’d have to provide documents that they’d have no way to be able to provide after this kind of a natural disaster.

[00:18:53] It’s more than likely that their wallets were tossed and never to be found, or even if they had a filing cabinet with this, it was probably destroyed and their documents littered to the countryside never to be found again. How are you supposed to be able to provide these documents to say, hey, I need help if you don’t have them after this kind of a natural disaster?

[00:19:11] If I were in their shoes, I’d be justifiably upset at the situation. I hope that this was a mistake and has since been corrected and policies have been changed, but I can’t find much on this particular situation. I am, however, so glad to hear that people like Pam, Antoinette, the church, and the unnamed Columbus, Mississippi man came together to help these smaller communities that would likely have not been given the resources on their own to recover.

[00:19:34] Anyway, that’s my two cents on the matter. We’ll move on. There were, unfortunately, more controversies with this tornado in particular. Due to the overwhelming amount of damage done throughout the overall outbreak, the surveys of some of the tornadoes were not as thorough as they would have been during a solo event or even a smaller outbreak event.

[00:19:50] I’m going to be honest, to find a complete timeline of the tornado, I had to rely heavily on Tornado Talk’s article while verifying the route through the National Weather Service Damage Assessment Toolkit. Even on the DAT, there were no labeled or notable damage indicators. Just path of the tornado with a paragraph summary.

[00:20:08] All of this being said, some of the damage done to the Chapel Grove area was pretty incredible, and there are arguments to be made that had this tornado been surveyed more thoroughly, the tornado would have likely been . able to receive a higher rating. I’m only going to briefly mention this, but I highly encourage you to go check out the Tornado Talk article on this because the folks there do a fantastic job of summarizing the rating controversy and summarizing the event as a whole.

[00:20:32] Definitely check that out. It will be linked with the rest of my sources in the description below. Chickasaw County was slow to receive federal aid, so they began rebuilding with county funds while they waited for federal aid to come trickling in.

[00:20:43] Finally qualifying for FEMA, the county received a grant of just under $549, 000, which fully repaid the $530,000 worth of expenses Chickasaw County incurred rebuilding the affected communities. Despite FEMA’s assistance, most of the help with rebuilding came from volunteers like Pam Robbins and Antoinette Harrell. Local teens also helped clear the debris and help even came from as far away as California in the form of a church who donated clothing to folks in Wren, a man in Cincinnati who drove down multiple times hauling supplies in a U-Haul, and a group from Casper, Wyoming, who came to help clear the rubble as well.

[00:21:20] The story of this EF3 is a story of communities coming together to overcome the odds. It’s so often when we find small communities like this that are unable to recover from an event like this because they don’t have the manpower or resources to rebuild. This isn’t the case here, and I genuinely wasn’t expecting to be saying something like this within this episode, but I feel like the New wren EF3 tornado, we got to see people put aside so much just to help their fellow man, just the way God asks his people to do. I think my takeaway today is how amazing the resilience of the human spirit is and how amazing the desire to help people can be. It’s without volunteers like Antoinette or Pam that these communities suffer.

[00:21:57] My name is Kay, you have been listening to Rough Skies Ahead, this time featured on Chaser Chat. Another shout out to Gabriel for hosting this episode. If you’re wanting more content like this, I am right in the middle of my podcast series covering the 2011 super outbreak out on the Rough Skies Ahead channel.

[00:22:13] So, if you are interested, Next up, we are actually covering the Smithville EF5, which is being uploaded right after this. You can expect to hear me doing Rough Skies Ahead episodes featured on Chaserchat as well as interviews alongside Gabe, so stay tuned for all of that. Both Rough Skies Ahead and Chaser Chat are available on all major podcasting platforms.

[00:22:32] Be back on my main podcast channel with the Smithville EF5. In the meantime, keep your eyes to the skies and take care of yourselves.

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