Rolling Fork Mississippi diner staff survive twister in fridge

As tornadoes descended on Mississippi Friday evening, house owners and staff at a Rolling Fork diner survived extreme winds by sheltering collectively within the restaurant’s walk-in fridge. The remainder of the restaurant was utterly destroyed, photographs present.

The group of eight individuals huddled contained in the walk-in cooler at Chuck’s Dairy Bar might really feel highly effective winds pushing the fridge alongside the bottom, proprietor Tracy Harden informed USA TODAY. Harden, 48, answered a telephone quantity listed on-line for the diner Saturday.

Her husband Tim, staff and some prospects knew the storm was coming Friday evening, Harden stated, and have been attempting to hunt shelter on the diner.

“Rapidly the lights flickered and someone hollered, ‘Cooler!’” and everybody rushed inside whereas her husband fought towards the wind to shut the fridge door, Harden stated. 

“Earlier than the door closed, he might see the sky,” she stated. “It hit that quick.”

“Simply as he received it closed, he stated, ‘The roof is gone,'” Harden stated.

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A buyer who made it by means of the storm cleared particles away from the fridge door in order that Harden and her seven companions might get out after the twister had handed.

Everybody who had been inside was OK, Harden stated.

Extra about Chuck’s Dairy Bar

Harden and her husband purchased the decades-old diner 16 years in the past, and it was a hub for the Rolling Fork neighborhood, she stated. By Saturday morning, the beloved gathering spot had been utterly destroyed and the one issues left standing have been the fridge and a toilet, the place yet another individual hid to outlive the twister.

“I care a lot for my city, and our enterprise is the place to go, not simply to eat, however to be beloved on and be comforted throughout something,” she stated.

Nighttime tornadoes will be particularly lethal

Nighttime tornadoes are twice as prone to be lethal as daytime tornadoes, scientists report. A 2008 research revealed by Northern Illinois College professors Walker Ashley and Andrew Krmenec discovered that nighttime tornadoes made up solely 27% of all tornadoes from 1950 to 2005, however have been chargeable for 39% of all twister deaths.

Contributing: Doyle Rice