Scott County man rides out storm in camper while clinging to his pit bull

SCOTT COUNTY, Miss. (WLBT) - Parts of the state are still cleaning up from Wednesday’s strong storms.

Off Line Creek Road in Scott County, we found what we often do after a storm in Mississippi, family and friends chipping in to help while the families are still trying to process what just happened.

Maybe none more shell-shocked than Richard Havens.

“Where the stairs come down, it had me trapped for a minute,” he explained.

It was just Havens and his 90-pound pit bull when he heard the storm coming Wednesday night.

“I grabbed him up and I said, Robbie, it’s too late,” described Havens. “If I go out now, debris is gonna be flying. So we rode the storm out in the camper. And she flipped us and kind of just rolled with it... just kinda rolled around few times.”

He’s sore, but managed to get out otherwise unharmed.

“I’ve been in the midst of breaking down almost every moment today,“ added Havens. “Not sad for myself and just maybe a little worried... unsure of what’s going to be going on.”

His next door neighbor was at the mobile home less than 100 yards away with her elderly father.

“I could hear a loud train noise in the back,” said Debbie Smith. “And, you know, they say that’s what it sounds like. And I never really thought about that until I heard that. Oh, and so all I can do was grab my dad and get down in the floor because I didn’t know what else to do. And so I got him down in the floor. And he didn’t even know what was going on, because he can’t hear very well. And so I’ll put him in the floor. And he said, What are you doing? I said, Well, it’s a tornado, daddy. I can hear it.”

Smith is overwhelmed, but through the constant hums of the chainsaws told us this.

“We can replace all of this but can’t replace their lives or our lives. So, I’m just very thankful for that,” said Smith.

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