Video: Former Supervisor Recalls Brush With Deadly Tornado

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ITAWAMBA COUNTY, MISS. (WCBI) – John M Smith had a storm shelter built at his house five years ago, never thinking he or his wife would have to use it.

But shortly before three in the afternoon on April 28 2014, his wife gave him an order.

“My wife told me to get in the storm house and I listened to her, and I sure was glad,” Smith recalled.

When Smith and his wife emerged from their storm house, they were shocked at the sudden change in their surroundings.

“I looked and seen everything I owned was tore up,” he said.

Highway 363 in from of the Smith home was closed, but help came quickly.

“Everybody come in and helped all they could,” Smith said.

Insurance took care of repairs for the Smith residence and a couple of rental properties, but several barns and a lot of pasture fencing was destroyed, Smith had to pay for all of that out of his own pocket, but he knows it could have been a lot worse.

“We were lucky, Good Lord watched over us. I was still alive,” Smith said.

Smith quickly got back to driving his school bus route and he says things have returned to normal for his neighbors. He says he learned several things from that experience. Seek shelter whenever there is the threat of a tornado, and one other very important fact.

“You got to listen to your wife, that’s one time she was right,” Smith said.