ENGLISH     NYT1220AtornadoA


Tornado Injures 60 in Mississippi
By DAVID M. HALBFINGER


ATLANTA, Dec. 19 EA powerful but short-lived tornado ripped through a small town in eastern Mississippi 
this afternoon, tearing the roofs off a Wal-Mart full of holiday shoppers and a La-Z-Boy factory and 
injuring at least 60 people, two of them critically, the authorities said.

The tornado struck about 1:15 p.m. Central time, in Newton, a town of 3,700 people about 30 miles west 
of Meridian on Interstate 20 and 60 miles east of Jackson, the state capital. It lasted only five minutes, 
officials said.

An 18-wheel diesel tanker was blown off the highway, and the oil spill forced the closing of the 
Interstate, a major east-west artery through the Deep South, for much of the afternoon, said Amy 
Carruth, spokeswoman for the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency.
 
Witnesses said a Sonic hamburger drive-in and a Subway sandwich shop were flattened. A nursing home 
near the Wal-Mart was damaged, but no residents were injured, Ms. Carruth said. Two supermarkets, 
a feed store and a fire station were also damaged. Ms. Carruth said she had no information yet on 
the number of houses damaged or destroyed.

"I was fixing to go home, and sitting in the front of the store," said Wanda Brown, a Sonic employee. 
The lights blinked off, on and off again, Ms. Brown said, when she saw a woman trying to pull the door 
shut. "The wind pulled the door off," she said. "We took off running to the back and went into the cooler."

Nathan Cumberland, 25, was shopping at Wal-Mart when he said "it turned real black, the windows busted, 
and the roof started peeling off." Mr. Cumberland said he ran to the back of store and "just laid in 
the aisle."

"The roof peeled off over me and I could see sky," he said.

Dr. Razee Ahmad, an emergency room physician at Newton Regional Hospital, said 60 people were treated 
there and 12 were taken to Meridian to treat more serious injuries, mostly cuts from flying glass. 
Ms. Carruth said the two people listed in critical condition had neck injuries.

Gov. Ronnie Musgrove declared a state of emergency after the tornado left about 6,800 people without 
electricity. Telephone and cellular service was also down, Ms. Carruth said. 

Mr. Musgrove and the state emergency management director inspected the scene early tonight, and a 
damage assessment team from the National Weather Service began its work at sunset.

Ms. Carruth said that conditions had been ripe for tornadoes and that a tornado watch had been in 
effect for the Newton area when the twister hit.

"It's been very hot the past two days," she said, "and when it's very hot in the middle of December, 
we start looking to the sky because we know something's going to happen. We just got over a tornado 
on Nov. 11 in Columbus, where about 2,000 homes were destroyed, so this is our time of the year for 
tornadoes, more than the spring. You get these heat waves off the Gulf Coast, mixed with the cold 
air in the jet stream, and, boom, it happens."