Biden visits Rolling Fork, the Mississippi town devastated by a deadly tornado

On Friday afternoon, President Joe Biden arrived in Rolling Fork, a Mississippi town devastated by a deadly tornado. Last week, the tornado tore down about 300 buildings in Rolling Fork and nearby Silver City, leaving behind piles of logs, bricks and twisted metal.
Hundreds of other buildings in both towns were badly damaged. In Mississippi, 21 people fell victim to the elements, another person died in Alabama.
Biden announced that the federal government would cover the full cost of the state’s emergency response over the next 30 days, including overtime pay for first responders. The president also said the Federal Emergency Management Agency will open disaster recovery centers in storm-affected counties to help residents access the resources they have.
President and First Lady Jill Biden are to assess the damage, meet with homeowners and first responders affected by the storm, and receive a quick briefing from federal and state officials. They will be joined on the trip by Governor Tate Reeves, Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith and Representative Benny Thompson.
In a statement released immediately after the tornado, Biden pledged the federal government would “do everything in its power to help.”
“We will be here as long as it takes,” he said. “We will work together to provide you with the support you need to recover.”
Last week’s bad weather has made life even more difficult in a region that is already experiencing a difficult economic situation. Mississippi is one of the poorest states in the country, and the area where the tornado hit this time is one of the poorest areas in the state. Many people here live from paycheck to paycheck, working mainly in agriculture.
The two counties affected by the tornado, Sharkey and Humphreys, are among the least populated in the state, with only a few thousand residents living in communities scattered across vast fields of cotton, corn and soybeans. The poverty rate in Sharkey County is 35% and Humphreys is 3%, compared to about 19% for the Mississippi average and less than 12% for the United States as a whole.
Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Deanne Criswell said some of the infrastructure damage in the area will take a long time to repair and that the administration will help restore key facilities to ” more resilient” and able to withstand future natural disasters.
Biden approved a Mississippi disaster declaration that frees up federal funds for temporary housing, home repairs and loans to cover uninsured property losses. However, some fear that inflation and economic problems will reduce the effectiveness of federal aid.