Homeowner thinks tornado picked up and moved her Cranfield mobile home – Mississippi’s Best Community Newspaper

Natchez – A small neighborhood on Nations Way in the Cranfield community looks like a scene from the Wizard of Oz premiere after an overnight storm, which may have caused significant damage.

Shirley Dawson lives in a trailer at 24A Nations Road off Cranfield Road in the area under a hurricane warning at 2 a.m. Wednesday. She described a potential tornado that lifted her home with eight people inside.

“The tornado hit my trailer and it nearly flipped over with us in it,” she said. “Two trees fell on top of my car, so now I don’t have a car. The metal frame of the trailer came through the kitchen floor.”

Dawson, 59, was in her bed at one end of the house, and the other seven in the house, ages 2, 11, 15, 16, 20 and 21, were stacked in a closet atop a mattress.

She said she was pinned to her bed and couldn’t move and felt as if her head was going to hit the wall. A large wardrobe fell off in her room and pots and pans spilled in the kitchen cupboards.

“It was all on the floor,” she said. “Pick the house up and put it back down, but not in the same place.”

The back porch blocked the back door of the trailer where they couldn’t get out. When help came, she said, they had to break through a glass door that could not be opened to get out.

Through it all, “we all came out without a scratch,” she said. “I hope no one ever has to experience anything like that.”

They went to her son’s home in Gilbert for the night and Dawson returned Wednesday morning to see if there was anything she could salvage. Pictures show the house’s siding and shed collapsed on top of her cars.

“I try to get some work clothes out of here if I can,” she said. “I can’t get anything in my locker. … the next-door neighbor had a little roof damage and the house before me was damaged. It seems she hit them a little bit and hit me on both sides.”

Tasha Filter said her 15-year-old son was staying at the house with a friend and frantically called her after 3 a.m. to tell her they had been hit by a tornado.

“He said it felt like he picked up the trailer, turned it around a bit, and uprooted the tree in the front yard,” said Felter.

Felter, who lives in Kingston, said she was standing outside and witnessed what she thought could be a tornado about 20 minutes before her son called.

She said the event lasted about 30 seconds. Hail fell, a quarter of its size, stopped and started again.
“Then the wind was about to die down,” she said, “and suddenly came the biggest gust of wind I’ve ever known.” “She scared me to death.”