The O’Zion Church in Meadville, Mississippi was devastated by a likely tornado on Saturday night. Church members sheltered in the bathroom during the storm but tell FOX Weather’s Brandy Campbell they are grateful to be unharmed. More than 20 tornadoes where reported across five states during a severe weather outbreak.
MEADVILLE, Miss. – A deadly tornado ripped apart a small church in southern Mississippi over the weekend, but it’s not the first run-in with nature for this historic house of worship.
The O’Zion Church in Meadville has a slogan: “Small church, big heart.” The congregation is using that motto to move forward after a powerful tornado took down the church, even tossing the steeple on the other side of a stand of trees.
On Sunday morning, most of the building, where a community usually attends worship service, lay in pieces. Debris is scattered about the area, but one spot is clear: where couple Rick and Diane took cover during the storm.
DRONE VIDEO SHOWS TORNADO DAMAGE AFTER DEADLY STORMS TEAR THROUGH HOUSTON AREA
“After all this, there’s one bare spot in this church, about a 6-foot diameter, that has a clean floor. That’s where she and I were laying, in that clean spot,” Rick said. “After it was over with, we stood up and, look at this people, we didn’t have a splinter on us. We didn’t have a speck of dust on us.”
Storm damage in Meadville, Mississippi on Dec. 29, 2024.
(FOX Weather)
O’Zion Church Secretary Phyllis Daniels Whittington told FOX Weather’s Brandy Campbell this isn’t the first destructive brush with nature the church has experienced in its history.
On May 5, 1934, a tornado struck O’Zion. About 90 years later, another twister came knocking as part of a severe weather outbreak across the South on Saturday night, claiming at least one life in Mississippi.
“We’re all devastated,” Whittington said. “But we know (God) has a future, a bright future for us.”
Storm reports since Dec. 28, 2024.
(FOX Weather)
National Weather Service teams across the Gulf Coast are completing damage surveys after the severe weather produced multiple long-track tornadoes in parts of Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi.
The NWS office in Jackson is sending a damage survey team to Franklin County to assess the intensity of the tornado that struck the area where the O’Zion Church once stood.