Mississippi Today
When disasters are deemed too small, rural Mississippi struggles to recover
Under a mystic blend of pink lightning and green sky, Victoria Jackson called her daughter in a panic, warning her of the news: A tornado was on a path towards Rolling Fork.
Her daughter was working that March night at Chuck’s Dairy Bar, a staple of the small, south Delta town. Along with some customers, Jackson’s daughter, Natasha, nestled into one of the coolers in the restaurant.
Hours later, once the storm blew by, Jackson headed to find her daughter, navigating through debris. She found Natasha shaking, in tears. While the tornado tore the rest of Chuck’s into shreds, the cooler and those inside it were safe.
“I thank God that I called her and told her to get down,” Jackson told Mississippi Today.
The tornado killed 14 people in Sharkey County, and left Rolling Fork with little resemblance of its prior self. While the Jacksons didn’t lose anyone or anything that night, the reason they were in Rolling Fork in the first place is because, three months prior, they lost everything.
The first tornado the Jacksons survived wiped away their homes last December, tearing up a trailer park where they lived in Anguilla. Victoria, her sister, aunt, cousin and everyone in their families lost their homes, among five total that were destroyed. About 20 members of the family had to relocate a few miles down Highway 61 to a motel in Rolling Fork. Many of them, including Victoria, are still there.
As is often the case for rural disaster survivors, the damages they endured were too small to trigger crucial federal aid. Victoria didn’t have home insurance and lost her job after the storm. Now, nearly six months later, her family hasn’t seen a cent of government disaster aid, and are instead counting on donations to put them in a real home again.
Disaster recovery is already an often difficult and drawn-out process. But for rural, poor towns like Anguilla, a town of 496 people, it’s even tougher.
When people think about disaster recovery, they often think of “FEMA” – the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the national hub of government disaster aid. In reality, though, a vast majority of the country’s disasters don’t receive any FEMA money. They’re what experts call “undeclared” events.
“If you were to aggregate all the losses tied to undeclared disasters, they actually are more costly than typically declared disasters,” said Gavin Smith, a professor of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning at North Carolina State University who has helped lead recovery efforts in multiple states.
In Mississippi, nearly a thousand homes have been damaged in undeclared disasters in just the last two years, state records show.
FEMA aid, which comes when the president signs a disaster declaration, is reserved for the larger disasters that leave states needing additional resources. But when a disaster doesn’t meet that threshold, most states, including Mississippi, can’t replicate the kinds of services FEMA can offer.
The programs states receive after a federal declaration include: paying for public infrastructure repairs, putting people in temporary housing, sending direct payments to survivors, expanding safety net programs like food stamps and uninsurance benefits, among others.
Since more often than not, FEMA money is unavailable, many disaster survivors rely on their home insurance to pay for repairs.
But low-income, uninsured families like the Jacksons have to instead depend on the slow, complex network of volunteers and charities. Nonprofits and national religious groups help struggling communities recover all over the country, collecting donations to help rebuild homes, and providing otherwise costly labor for free. But that process takes time.
“If they’re back and recovered within six months, that is like warp speed for these organizations,” said Michelle Annette Meyer, the director of the Hazard Reduction & Recovery Center at Texas A&M University. “At best, they’re looking at a year-long process to get the donations in, confirm the paperwork, get the volunteers and get the materials donated.”
For Sharkey County, where Anguilla and Rolling Fork are, the nonprofit Delta Force handles disaster recovery, finding new homes for survivors after undeclared events. Delta Force’s chairman, Martha Bray, wouldn’t comment on specific cases for privacy reasons, only saying that they’re waiting for enough donations to come in to buy new mobile homes for the Jacksons.
“It’s going to be a long process, that’s all we hear,” Victoria Jackson said.
Last December, just before Christmas and after the tornado destroyed her home, Jackson lost her retail job at a local shop. She said her boss didn’t let her come back despite giving her time off after the storm, and then listed her as having quit, which blocked her from unemployment benefits.
Now, she’s sharing a two-bed room with her husband and six kids at the Rolling Fork Motel.
Jackson said she received $2,500 in initial donations from local churches and charities. But expenses like food, gas, laundry, and taking care of her children quickly dried that money up. Since her daughter Natasha lost her job at Chuck’s Dairy Bar, the family’s relying on her husband’s truck-driving job to keep them afloat.
After the December tornado, Anguilla Mayor Jan Pearson reached out to state and U.S. representatives, hoping that they could appeal for government assistance. The traces of the tornado were widespread in the small town, damaging businesses and even blowing the roof off the town’s middle school, forcing students to relocate.
“I wrote all of them a letter,” Pearson said. “However, to no avail. We did not get anything.”
County officials, Pearson said, told her the damages didn’t meet the threshold for federal assistance.
“I keep hearing we didn’t meet the threshold,” she said. “Well I asked somebody, ‘Will you tell me what the threshold is?’ No one could tell me what the threshold is.”
For Individual Assistance, the FEMA program that includes housing and other direct support for survivors, there is no set threshold, officials told Mississippi Today.
“It is kind of subjective,” FEMA spokesperson Mike Wade said.
FEMA weighs several factors, such as the degree of damages and the amount of uninsured losses, when deciding if a declaration is justified. The agency categorizes damages into several categories, ranging from “affected” to “destroyed.”
But to local and state officials, FEMA’s criteria is unclear.
In the summer of 2021, for instance, heavy rain flooded 284 homes in the Delta. While local officials pleaded for federal support, the state informed them that not enough of the homes received “major damage,” which FEMA defines as needing “extensive repairs.”
Last March, 33 tornadoes touched down in Mississippi, destroying 42 homes across a dozen counties. The state applied for a federal declaration, but was denied.
While there’s no set threshold, the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency estimated that at least 50 homes need major damage to earn a federal declaration.
But the damages from undeclared disasters in just the last couple years dwarf that number.
Since 2021, 982 homes in the state received some damage from an undeclared natural disaster, according to records from MEMA; 81 of those homes were completely destroyed, and another 203 received major damage.
“When you look at only one of (the undeclared disasters), the damage may be relatively small,” said Andrew Rumbach, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute whose research focuses on rural recovery efforts. “But when you add all those up across the state, it actually cumulatively could be much more important than some of those big events that do get that support.”
Anguilla has just 250 households, according to the Census. Sharkey County Supervisor Jesse Mason, who represents Anguilla, wondered how such a small place could reach the amount of damages that FEMA looks for.
“I don’t know what the magic number is,” Mason said. “I guess maybe it had to tear the whole town up.”
Rural areas have an especially hard time getting FEMA disaster aid, experts say. Mississippi was the fourth most rural state according to a 2010 Census survey, the latest with such data. Sharkey County, home to 3,488 people, is the second least populated county in the state. Neighboring Issaquena County is the first.
“The more rural you are and the more scattered your population and assets are, sometimes those kind of events are the ones that slip under the radar compared to the events where there’s media, for example, to immediately cover it, or there’s political pressure to immediately make declarations,” Rumbach said.
Mississippi has a program that sends money to counties after undeclared disasters. The Disaster Assistance Repair Program, or DARP, works with local nonprofits, and sends up to $250,000 for materials to rebuild homes. Meyer, the Texas A&M professor, said that’s more than what most states do after undeclared events.
Since 2018, DARP has helped rebuild 850 homes in 22 counties. But Sharkey County hasn’t applied for DARP funds to help the Anguilla survivors, and officials couldn't be reached to explain why.
Every county in the state has emergency management officials. But in Sharkey County, there are only two such employees, and both work part-time. Counties with lower tax bases and less capacity to do damage assessments struggle to make the case for disaster declarations, Rumbach said.
One of those two employees, Natalie Perkins, also runs the local weekly newspaper. After the Rolling Fork disaster, which President Joe Biden approved for federal aid, Perkins saw firsthand the difference a declaration makes.
“When you have a declared disaster, everyone comes out of the woodwork to help,” she said. “But when you have an undeclared (event), you don’t get the attention, you don’t get the donations, you don’t get the federal and state funding that you do in a declared disaster. That’s just the bottom line.”
On the morning of Mar. 29, five days after the tornado in Rolling Fork, which also damaged parts of Anguilla, Mayor Pearson scrambled to help FEMA officials set up a booth outside of the town hall.
Pearson sat down with Mississippi Today to talk about the December tornado, the one that displaced the Jacksons. She emphasized that she didn’t want to take away attention from what happened in Rolling Fork. But she couldn’t hold back frustration over the lack of help Victoria Jackson and her family received.
“These people just three months ago lost their homes,” the mayor said. “I can’t equate Rolling Fork with Anguilla. But come on now, people are people, humans are humans. The (Jacksons) left Anguilla and came to Rolling Fork. Now a tornado hit Rolling Fork. These people don’t have anything, and you’re telling them they can’t qualify (for FEMA aid)?”
At the motel, the Jacksons accused the owner of poor treatment, saying he recently raised their weekly rent to $400, and charges extra to wash their sheets. When reached for comment, the motel staff said the owner was out of the country and couldn’t comment. Meanwhile, the Jacksons don’t know how much longer they’ll be able to afford the room.
That Wednesday, while federal officials were in Anguilla, Victoria tried to apply for FEMA aid. They called back later, she said, telling her she’d been denied. While the agency won’t comment on specific cases, FEMA confirmed that aid wasn’t available for people in her situation.
“We just need the help that they’re giving other people,” Jackson said, wondering why she and her family had been left out. “Anguilla is Sharkey County, Rolling Fork is Sharkey County, so all this should be combined together, right? Help for everybody, right?”
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
The University of Mississippi Medical Center has acquired Canton-based Merit Health Madison and is preparing to move a pediatric clinic to Madison, continuing a trend of moving services to Jackson’s suburbs.
The 67-bed hospital, now called UMMC Madison, will provide a wide range of community hospital services, including emergency services, medical-surgical care, intensive care, cardiology, neurology, general surgery and radiology services. It also will serve as a training site for medical students, and it plans to offer OB-GYN care in the future.
“As Mississippi’s only academic medical center, we must continue to be focused on our three-part mission to educate the next generation of health care providers, conduct impactful research and deliver accessible high-quality health care,” Dr. LouAnn Woodward, UMMC’s vice chancellor of health affairs, said in a statement. “Every decision we make is rooted in our mission.”
The new facility will help address space constraints at the medical center’s main campus in Jackson by freeing up hospital beds, imaging services and operating areas, said Dr. Alan Jones, associate vice chancellor for health affairs.
UMMC physicians have performed surgeries and other procedures at the hospital in Madison since 2019. UMMC became the full owner of the hospital May 1 after purchasing it from Franklin, Tennessee-based Community Health Systems.
The Batson Kids Clinic, which offers pediatric primary care, will move to the former Mississippi Center for Advanced Medicine location in Madison. This space will allow the medical center to offer pediatric primary care and specialty services and resolve space issues that prevent the clinic from adding new providers, according to Institutions of Higher Learning board minutes.
A UMMC spokesperson did not respond to questions about the services that will be offered at the clinic or when it will begin accepting patients.
The Mississippi Center for Advanced Medicine, a pediatric subspecialty clinic, closed last year as a result of a settlement in a seven-year legal battle between the clinic and UMMC in a federal trade secrets lawsuit.
The changes come after the opening of UMMC’s Colony Park South clinic in Ridgeland in February. The clinic offers a range of specialty outpatient services, including surgical services. Another Ridgeland UMMC clinic, Colony Park North, will open in 2026.
The expansion of UMMC clinical services to Madison County has been criticized by state lawmakers and Jackson city leaders. The medical center does not need state approval to open new educational facilities. Critics say UMMC has used this exemption to locate facilities in wealthier, whiter neighborhoods outside Jackson while reducing services in the city.
UMMC did not respond to a request for comment about its movement of services to Madison County.
UMMC began removing clinical services this year from Jackson Medical Mall, which is in a majority-Black neighborhood with a high poverty rate. The medical center plans to reduce its square footage at the mall by about 75% in the next year.
The movement of health care services from Jackson to the suburbs is a “very troubling trend” that will make it more difficult for Jackson residents to access care, Democratic state Sen. John Horhn, who will become Jackson’s mayor July 1, previously told Mississippi Today.
Lawmakers sought to rein in UMMC’s expansion outside Jackson this year by passing a bill that would require the medical center to receive state approval before opening new educational medical facilities in areas other than the vicinity of its main campus and Jackson Medical Mall. Republican Gov. Tate Reeves vetoed the legislation, saying he opposed an unrelated provision in the bill.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The post UMMC hospital madison county appeared first on mississippitoday.org
Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.
Political Bias Rating: Center-Left
The article presents a primarily factual report on UMMC’s expansion into Madison County, outlining the medical center’s services and strategic decisions while including critiques from Democratic leaders and local officials about the suburban shift. The inclusion of concerns over equity and access—highlighting that the expansion is occurring in wealthier, whiter suburbs at the expense of services in majority-Black, poorer neighborhoods—leans the piece toward a center-left perspective, emphasizing social justice and community impact. However, the article maintains a measured tone by presenting statements from UMMC representatives and government officials without overt editorializing, thus keeping the overall coverage grounded in balanced reporting with a slight progressive framing.
Nationally known comedian Rita Brent will host the Medgar & Myrlie Evers Institute’s “Medgar at 100” Concert on June 28.
Tickets go on sale Saturday, June 14, and can be ordered on the institute’s website.
The concert will take place at the Jackson Convention Complex and is the capstone event of the “Medgar at 100” Celebration. Organizers are calling the event “a cultural tribute and concert honoring the enduring legacy of Medgar Wiley Evers.”
“My father believed in the power of people coming together — not just in protest, but in joy and purpose, and my mother and father loved music,” said Reena Evers-Everette, executive director of the institute. “This evening is about honoring his legacy with soul, celebration, and a shared commitment to carry his work forward. Through music and unity, we are creating space for remembrance, resilience, and the rising voices of a new generation.”
In addition to Brent, other featured performers include: actress, comedian and singer Tisha Campbell; soul R&B powerhouse Leela James; and Grammy award-winning artist, actor, entrepreneur and philanthropist Q Parker and Friends.
Organizers said the concert is also “a call to action — a gathering rooted in remembrance, resistance, and renewal.”
Proceeds from the event will go to support the Medgar & Myrlie Evers Institute’s mission to “advance civic engagement, develop youth leadership, and continue the fight for justice in Mississippi and beyond.”
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The post Rita Brent, Q Parker headline 'Medgar at 100' Concert appeared first on mississippitoday.org
Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.
Political Bias Rating: Centrist
This article presents a straightforward, factual report on the upcoming “Medgar at 100” concert honoring civil rights leader Medgar Wiley Evers. The tone is respectful and celebratory, focusing on the event’s cultural and community significance without expressing a political stance or ideological bias. It quotes organizers and highlights performers while emphasizing themes of remembrance, unity, and justice. The coverage remains neutral by reporting the event details and mission of the Medgar & Myrlie Evers Institute without editorializing or promoting a specific political viewpoint. Overall, it maintains balanced and informative reporting.
Residents at Chapel Ridge Apartments in Jackson are left wondering what to do next after months dealing with trash pileups, property theft and the possibility of water shutoffs due to the property owner skipping out on the bill.
On Sunday, Ward 5 Councilman Vernon Hartley, city attorney Drew Martin and code enforcement officers discussed next steps for the complex, which, since April 30, has been without a property manager.
“How are you all cracking down on other possible fraudulent property managers around Jackson?” one woman asked Martin.
“ We don’t know they’re there until we know they’re there, and I know that’s a terrible answer, but I don’t personally have another one I’m aware of right now,” Martin said. “These individuals don’t seem to have owned another apartment complex in the Metro Jackson area, despite owning a whole bunch nationwide.”
Back in April, a letter was left on the door of the leasing office advising residents to not make rental payments until a new property manager arrives. The previous property managers are Lynd Management Group, a company based in San Antonio, Texas.
The complex has been under increased scrutiny after Chapel Ridge Apartments lost its solid waste contract mid-March due to months of nonpayment. The removal of dumpsters led to a portion of the parking lot turning into a dumping site, an influx of rodents and gnats, and an investigation by the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality. Local leaders pitched in to help remedy the situation, and in May, Waste Management provided two dumpsters for the complex.
However, the problems persisted. In May, JXN Water released the names of 15 apartment complexes that owe more than $100,000 in unpaid water fees. Chapel Ridge was on the list. JXN Water spokesperson Aisha Carson said via email that they are “pursuing legal options to address these large-scale delinquencies across several properties.”
“While no shutoffs are imminent at this time, we are evaluating each case based on legal feasibility and the need to balance enforcement with tenant protections. Our focus is on transparency and accountability, not disruption—but we will act when needed to ensure the integrity of the system,” Carson said.
And earlier this week, Chapel Ridge Apartments was declared a public nuisance. Martin said this gives the city of Jackson “the authority to come in, mow the grass and board up any of the units where people aren’t living.”
Martin said the situation is complicated, because the complex is owned by Chapel Ridge Apartments LLC. The limited liability corporation is owned by CRBM Realty Inc. and Crown Capital Holdings LLC, which are ultimately owned by Moshe “Mark” Silber. In April, Silber was sentenced to 30 months in prison for conspiracy to commit wire fraud affecting a financial institution. Earlier this month, both companies filed for bankruptcy in New Jersey.
Now, Martin said the main goal is to find someone who can manage the property.
“Somebody’s got to be able to collect rent from you,” Martin said. “They got to be able to pay the water. They got to be able to pay the garbage. They got to be able to pay for the lights to be on. They got to maintain the property, so that’s our goal is to put that in place.”
Chapel Ridge offers a rent scale based on household income. Those earning under 50% of the area median income — between $21,800 and $36,150 depending on household size — for example, pay $480 for a two-bedroom and $539 for a three-bedroom unit. Rent increases between $20 and $40 for those earning under 60% of the area median income.
Valarie Banks said that when she moved into Chapel Ridge nearly 13 years ago, it was a great community. The disabled mother and grandmother moved from West Jackson to the complex because it was neatly kept and quiet.
“It was beautiful. I saw a lot of kids out playing. There were people that were engaging you when you came out. They were eager to help,” Banks said. “ I hope that they could bring this place back to the way it once was.”
But after months of uncertainty, Banks is preparing to move. She said she’s not the only one.
“I have somewhere to go, but I’m just trying to get my money together so I can be able to handle the deposits and the bills that come after you move,” she said. “All of my doctors are around here close to me. In 12 years, I made this place home for me. … I’ve been stacking my rent, but it’s still not enough if I want to move this month.”
While she said she’s holding onto her rent payments for the time being, she realizes that many of her fellow residents may not be as lucky. Without someone to maintain the apartments, some residents are finding themselves without basic amenities.
“Some people are in dire straits, because they don’t have a stove or a fridge or the air conditioner,” she said. “Their stove went out, or the fridge went out, or they stole the air conditioner while you’re in the apartment.”
Banks isn’t the only one who is formulating a plan to leave. One woman, who asked to remain anonymous, said she’s been trying to save money to move, but she already has $354 wrapped up in a money order that she’s unable to pass off for her rent, due to the property manager’s recent departure.
“It really feels like an abandonment and just stressful to live where I’m living at right now. This just doesn’t happen. It just feels stressful. It doesn’t feel good at all,” she said.
She’s trying to remain optimistic, but as each day passes without someone to maintain the property, she’s losing hope.
“ I just hope that things get better some day, somehow, hopefully, because if not, more than likely I’m going to have to leave because I can only take so much,” she said. “I can’t continue to deal with this situation of hoping and wishing somebody comes, and they don’t.”
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The post Future uncertain for residents of abandoned south Jackson apartment complex appeared first on mississippitoday.org
Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.
Political Bias Rating: Center-Left
This article from *Mississippi Today* primarily focuses on the struggles of low-income residents at Chapel Ridge Apartments, emphasizing the human impact of property mismanagement, regulatory gaps, and systemic neglect. The piece maintains a factual tone, but it centers the voices of vulnerable tenants and local officials seeking accountability—hallmarks of a center-left perspective. While it does not overtly advocate for policy change, the narrative framing highlights social injustice and institutional failures, subtly aligning with progressive concerns about housing equity and corporate responsibility.
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