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Text messages and a video from a prisoner inside the Mississippi State Penitentiary have raised questions about a homicide there during a 2020 gang war.

During the war, Denorris Howell was strangled to death. No one was charged with his killing.

Howell was one of 42 people who died by homicide in Mississippi prisons over the past decade, a toll uncovered by a reporting team that includes Mississippi Today, The Marshall Project – Jackson, the Clarion Ledger, Hattiesburg American and The Mississippi Link. Total convictions in those cases? Six.

“Oh, my God, there’s something wrong with that picture,” said Howell’s great aunt, Annie Moffitt, who runs Annie’s Home Cooking in Holly Springs, where he once worked.

Parchman’s gang war came after years of neglect by state officials, who slashed millions in funding and allowed conditions at the prison to deteriorate after federal courts ended oversight of the facility in 2011, according to an investigation by the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting, now a part of Mississippi Today, and ProPublica.

The U.S. Department of Justice later blamed the war and the violence leading up to it on inadequate staffing, cursory investigations, insufficient security measures, unfettered access to contraband and uncontrolled gang activity. 

“These systemic failures result in an environment rife with weapons, drugs, gang activity, extortion, and violence,” the report said.

Mississippi Department of Corrections officials said they referred only one of the three homicides in three days to prosecutors. Overall, the agency referred 15 of the 42 homicides to prosecutors over the past decade, and said in a recent statement that it “remains committed to ensuring the safety of inmates in its custody.”

David Fathi, director of the ACLU National Prison Project, called these numbers inconceivably low. “I can’t imagine any other law enforcement agency failing to refer three-fourths of the homicides under its jurisdiction to prosecutors,” he said. “These victims’ lives are not seen as sufficiently valuable to warrant the effort.”

After the gang war, Gov. Tate Reeves hired the former head of Angola, Louisiana’s most notorious prison, to clean up Parchman and the other prisons. The Mississippi Legislature passed raises for correctional officers.

But the violence that initially declined under Corrections Commissioner Burl Cain’s leadership is now back on the rise. With five killings already, 2025 marks Mississippi’s worst year for prison homicides since 2021.

Fatal response to a dispute over money

Denorris “Nod” Howell grew up in the Waterford community between Oxford and Holly Springs, the eldest of three children.

“He was a good young man who treated all of us with the ultimate respect,” recalled Moffitt, his great aunt. “He loved his grandmother, who was my sister.”

After the teen shot up to 6-foot-1, he played power forward for Holly Springs High School and graduated in 2001.

“Denorris was a good kid,” said his mother, Janice Wilkins. “He was an obedient child. I didn’t have much problems out of him growing up, other than him being a typical teenager.”

Unlike others, he and his brother didn’t hang out in clubs, she said. “When kids grow up, they venture out and do their own thing, but as long as you are in my house, you have rules.”

After graduating, Howell moved out and got married. He and his wife had four children. He worked a series of odd jobs, first at a warehouse in Oxford and then at his great aunt’s restaurant.

In 2010, Howell and a friend were at his home when LaKeith Jones arrived. According to testimony, Howell had recently sold a car to Jones, who still owed him money. Once Jones paid the remaining balance, Howell would give him the keys.

The conversation between them grew heated. Howell shot Jones five times.

Howell called 911 and told the dispatcher that he had shot Jones in self-defense because he thought Jones was about to pull out a pistol. He later told a deputy that he had not wanted to shoot Jones, but that Jones was robbing him and had robbed him four times in the past.

Sheriff’s investigators did not find a pistol on Jones’ body, and none of the witnesses who testified at Howell’s trial said that Jones had a weapon.

In 2012, a jury convicted Howell of manslaughter. He was sentenced to 17 years and began serving that time at Parchman, one of the nation’s most infamous prisons.

The maximum security prison holds up to 2,542 men in seven buildings, surrounded by an 18,000-acre working farm. The prison’s long history of violence and abuse has been documented by journalists, researchers, filmmakers and blues singers.

‘I was praying that he was safe’

After her son began serving his time in Parchman, two hours away, Wilkins began working locally at the Marshall County Correctional Facility, where she taught incarcerated men how to give haircuts.

The whole time there, she thought of her son, she said. “I was praying that he was safe.”

Through her classes, men learned all styles of cuts, and she said prison officials grew to appreciate her. “They call me ‘Boss Lady,’ the one that everybody loves,” she said.

After a year of instruction, the men “know what they’re doing,” she said. “They get a license just like mine,” she said, flashing her own license from the state Board of Cosmetology and Barbering.

Many of those she taught have left prison far behind. “They’re in barber shops, and some of them have ventured out and gotten their own shop,” she said. “They’re just doing really good.”

While she worked, she waited for her son’s release. He had told her that he might come home as early as 2020, because he could be paroled after serving half his sentence. 

She began to plan for a huge family gathering to welcome him home, complete with chicken, fish, frog legs, shrimp, crab legs and vegetables — all the food he loved.

‘Ain’t nothing under control’

In the waning days of 2019, a war between the Vice Lords and the Gangster Disciples spread across Mississippi prisons.

In hopes of preventing the violence from spreading, Parchman officials locked down the men in their cells to prevent their movement.

Despite this, Walter Gates, 25, who was serving a 10-year sentence for burglary from Coahoma County, was stabbed to death on New Year’s Day at Parchman. Roosevelt Holliman, 32, who was serving 12 years for armed robbery and burglary out of Forrest County, met the same fate a day later. Two suspects in the Holliman killing are pending trial.

Reeves declared in a Jan. 3, 2020, tweet, “Grateful to those working to restore order and safety. That is the first priority. Then we need answers and justice on the people who perpetrated this violence.”

The Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting received a series of text messages and videos during that war from people in the prisons and their loved ones.

A message sent on Jan. 2 identified a female correctional officer in Unit 29 “giving inmates keys right now, and my brothers have no one to alert.”

A similar message followed on a private Facebook page, accusing the same officer of cutting off lights.

Photos and videos showed men in red-and-white-striped uniforms, reserved for people convicted of the most violent crimes, walking freely through Unit 29, with no correctional officers in sight.

The message from inside Parchman continued: “If MDOC thinks they have control, they are very mistaken.”

In a video recorded during the unrest on a contraband mobile phone, a cell sits in darkness while other parts of the prison are lit.

Loud shouting can be heard as an incarcerated person inside the cell appears to be punching someone. A prisoner recording the video narrates, “They’re straight up hitting the motherf—ers with knives and sh–, beating them motherf—ers up.”

A man can be heard saying, “I’ve got him in a chokehold.”

Another voice cheers him on: “Oh, yeah, oh, yeah. Dead. Oh, yeah. Dead. Deaaaaad.”

Despite the loud shouting throughout the incident captured on video, no officer can be seen responding.

At 3 a.m. on Jan. 3, an officer called additional staff to the Unit 29 building, where they found Howell’s body in his cell. His cellmate, who had been stabbed repeatedly and whose name was blacked out on the incident report, was taken by ambulance to the hospital. At 4:22 a.m., the coroner pronounced Howell dead.

The coroner ruled that Howell’s cellmate had strangled him to death in self-defense.

By the time the governor decided to shut down Unit 29 on Jan. 28, five prisoners at Parchman had been killed, and dozens had been injured. Three others were found hanging in their cells. MDOC ruled their deaths suicides.

Detrick Munford, who was a captain over Unit 29 then and later served as Parchman’s deputy warden, said he heard on the evening of Jan. 2 about a female officer allegedly sharing her keys with prisoners. He said he confronted her and took her keys.

After that, he opened an investigation into the officer’s actions to determine if she had a relationship with a gang, he said. “When she found out, she quit.”

He sent his findings to the prison’s investigators, he said. “They take it from there.”

No charges were ever brought against the officer, who was never identified in any department report. She said in text messages recently that prisoners lied about her, that she was never investigated by MDOC and that she wasn’t even at work that night. But her timesheet reflects that she did work that night. She worked from 8:40 a.m. on Jan. 2 until 1:39 a.m. on Jan. 3, less than an hour and a half before prison officials discovered Howell’s body.

No one ever got her keys, she wrote. “I was the one lied on.”

She said after Howell’s death, Munford checked that she had her keys.

Munford said he knows of some cases where correctional officers did favors for gangs. He said he also knows of several cases where correctional officers enabled violence against those behind bars, but he doesn’t know of any cases where officers were prosecuted.

Munford said officers can cut off the lights to an individual cell.

Parchman is located in a rural area where there are few jobs, he said. “People tend to think they can’t do no better, so you have to go along with the system.”

If people refuse to “go along with the system, they’ll find a way to get you out of the way,” he said. “There’s so much corruption.”

Within weeks after Howell’s death, two more men were killed at Parchman. Prison officials tried to reassure the public that these were isolated incidents. 

“We have been working around the clock with MDOC and DPS [the Department of Public Safety] to respond immediately and prevent this going forward,” Reeves tweeted on Jan. 21, 2020.

In the wake of the killings, Reeves appointed Cain as corrections commissioner to clean up the prisons and restore safety.

By the end of that year, six people had been killed at Parchman and three more in other parts of the state’s prison system. No one has been convicted in connection with any of the deaths.

‘He told me that he feared for his life’

On Jan. 3, 2020, Wilkins got a call from the chaplain that her son was dead. Since then, she said, she has received no other details about his death and no autopsy report.

“I just felt empty,” she said. 

She paused. “Sometimes it feels like it just happened yesterday.”

She had just talked to her son the night before, and he sounded nervous, she said. “He told me that he feared for his life.”

She said her son told her that the lights had been turned out and that a guard was letting men out of their cells.

Years later, she heard a rumor from the men she worked with at the Marshall County Correctional Facility that her son’s cellmate had been killed in prison, but it offered her little solace. “I don’t wish that on nobody,” she said. She later found out that the rumor was false. 

Today, five years after his death, Wilkins continues to have questions. No one from the prison has ever explained what happened to her son, she said. 

“Justice needs to be served,” she said. “My son had four children who loved him very dearly.”

Reporter Leonardo Bevilacqua contributed to this report.

This article is part of a reporting collaboration by Mississippi Today, The Marshall Project – Jackson, Clarion Ledger, Hattiesburg American and The Mississippi Link. 

Update 9/10/25: This story has been updated to include details of the corrections officer’s timesheet.

The Mississippi Public Service Commission voted Tuesday morning to initiate daily fines of up to $12,500 against the city of Holly Springs as long as it violates state law regarding providing utility services.

The vote, which was unanimous, comes after a hearing the PSC held in New Albany last week over Holly Springs’ long troubled power provider. At the hearing, the commission made two decisions: to declare that the city had “failed to provide reasonably adequate service,” violating state law, and to petition a chancery judge to place the utility into a receivership.

Holly Springs’ utility department serves about 12,000 customers in north Mississippi, most of whom live outside the city limits.

Northern District Public Service Commissioner Chris Brown, whose constituency includes Holly Springs, explained the PSC has discretion over how often and how long to impose the fines, as well as how often the city has to pay what’s owed. For instance, Brown said, if the utility does end up in a third party’s hands or being bought, the PSC can end the fines.

Money from the fines, he added, would go to the state’s general fund. Brown said the PSC could then request the Legislature to appropriate those dollars back to whoever is running the utility.

“This problem has been decades in the making,” he said during Tuesday’s monthly docket meeting.

Brown also noted allegations that Holly Springs has misappropriated funds meant to be reinvested into the utility. Those claims are at the center of a lawsuit the Tennessee Valley Authority, which sells power to the city, filed against Holly Springs earlier this year.

Central District Public Service Commissioner De’Keither Stamps asked his colleagues where the money for fines would come from, before concluding they’d likely have to come from Holly Springs taxpayers. Stamps also said the city took steps Monday to address recommendations made by Silverpoint Consulting in a July report.

“Does that not signal to this body that the entity is making appropriate steps to improve the system?” Stamps asked.

Brown responded that the city has had plenty of chances already, and that the fines are meant to motivate local leaders.

“The people in that district have obviously been suffering under a system that has failed them for decades,” he said. “Although we appreciate their moving to rectify this, that’s exactly why this penalty is being levied, to make sure they understand not providing adequate service is not going to be tolerated by this body.”

Mississippi Today reached out to Holly Springs’ mayor and city attorney and did not hear back before publication.

Fines from the PSC would just add onto recent financial challenges for the small city of just around 7,000 people. In August, Mississippi Today reported that the state auditor’s office diverted $450,000 of Holly Springs’ sales tax revenue — or roughly half of the city’s yearly total — for past-due audits.

The city’s median income is around $47,000 and its poverty rate is about one in four, census data shows. Both figures are worse than the rest of the state’s.

Talking to Mississippi Today after the meeting, Brown said while he understands the city may have trouble paying the fines, the idea is to compel action from local leaders such as selling off parts of or all of its service area to a neighboring electric cooperative.

Members of the Jackson Housing Task Force gathered Monday afternoon to discuss the ongoing relocation efforts at Blossom Apartments and rental inspections during their second meeting since forming.

One member of the task force, Stacey Patrick, has been a resident of the south Jackson complex for nearly 17 years. JXN Water, the city’s privately run water utility, discontinued services to Blossom Apartments in late July after its owner had long failed to pay the bill.

“When they fall short, we are still hurt,” Patrick said during the meeting. “We are the ones that are still hurt. Is there anything they could put in place that it wouldn’t affect us?”

In addition to living without water, Patrick said she and her husband, Robert, have been working daily for the last month on applications for apartments around Jackson. The search has been difficult, she said, because many places require security deposits and proof of salary up to three times the amount of the rent. 

“It’s very hard. It’s not easy,” Patrick said. “It’s not like it used to be where there’s a sign, you call them and you can get into a place. I’ve never seen it like this before.”

Patrick hoped they had finally gotten a break with Arbor Park Apartments, but after paying nearly $1,600 to claim a unit, once it was time to move in, it was uninhabitable, trashed and filthy.

“She (the property manager) had us believing that we were supposedly getting into a place for a whole month,” she told Mississippi Today. “She kept us on hold. We could have been out there trying to find other housing.”

Patrick is now waiting for a refund from the apartments. 

After JXN Water initially shut off services to Blossom Apartments in July, U.S. District Judge Henry Wingate twice ordered the water temporarily restored. But those extensions have run out, and since then, Patrick said the Jackson Fire Department has ceased delivering water to residents. Mississippi Home Corporation deemed the property unfit for housing in early August. In addition to Patrick, roughly a dozen families are still living at the complex without water as they struggle to find a new place. 

“ It’s just a hard thing that we’re going through right now because of this water shut off, and it’s not easy going out here trying to find a place. It’s not easy at all,” Patrick said. 

Since mid-August, Stewpot Community Services has been working to relocate Blossom residents. The nonprofit has placed a few residents in hotels, while others are waiting it out with family members. Jill Buckley, director of Stewpot, said that of the 27 households it has identified through management records and door-knocking, they’ve been able to rehouse eight families.

“One thing that has really slowed the process down is the HUD inspections for people who have housing vouchers, so waiting for the inspections to happen has been a little frustrating,” Buckley said.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development requires rental property inspections to ensure their habitability and safety. Buckley said another issue residents are facing is the availability of apartments across Jackson. 

Eight of the 11-member Housing Task Force were in attendance at Monday’s meeting. Attorney Robert Ireland, who is representing another complex in its lawsuit with JXN Water over nonpayment, resigned from the task force to avoid a conflict of interest, said Nic Lott, Jackson’s communications director.

Task force vice-chair Jennifer Welch, who owns and manages properties in Jackson, Hattiesburg and Meridian, described one issue impacting JXN Water as “churn.” Limited liability companies rack up large water bills, terminate the account and then establish a new LLC to open a new account with JXN Water. 

“The property doesn’t even change ownership,” Welch said. “It’s just new LLCs being established really for this purpose of fraud, in my opinion.”

Welch said initiating a multifamily account with JXN Water should be as rigorous as applying for a loan. Landlords should be required to have a deed, be in good standing with the Secretary of State’s office and provide personal information and a working contact number or email for the manager of the LLC, she said.

“ There’s a lot of times when I sign up for a random account and they’re verifying that my phone number is legit,” Welch said. “Can we not do that if someone’s gonna be able to have a $150,000 water bill?”

Carla Dazet, a billing executive for JXN Water, also attended the meeting, though not as the company’s official designee to the task force. She said JXN Water has now implemented a process for shut-offs – whether it’s a residential, commercial or multi-family account, once the account is past-due 60 days, the property will lose water.  

“It won’t be a compounded annual delinquency. It’ll just be two months,” Dazet said. “That’s going forward. That’s already in place, so we don’t have to worry about the big bills building up.”

Welch also noted that as a property manager, she has found it increasingly difficult to purchase insurance for her properties due to the perception of high crime in the city.

“If we can prove that those areas are changing, I think that it can make it easier for people like myself to get insurance,” Welch said. 

Task force members also discussed city ordinances and code enforcement. Earnest Ward, president of the Association of South Jackson Neighborhoods, said he performs routine inspections on his properties, something that other landlords are lax to do. 

Units get damaged, cars rust away in yards, and some tenants have multiple pets that are destructive to the property which further decreases the value, he said. A solution he proposed is including city ordinances around rental inspections in the lease agreement. 

“I think it needs to be done regularly. They know what they expect,” Ward said. “Certain things they probably won’t do, but I think the landlord needs to take more of their responsibility on inspecting their own property.”

In 2022, the city made changes to its rental registration ordinance in an effort to track compliance and tackle blight. According to figures shared during the meeting, the goal was to inspect nearly 11,000 units, but the city fell short by inspecting only 3,200.

The city also relaunched the rental registry and inspection program, which requires  landlords to register properties and provides an avenue for tenants to record complaints. Victoria Love, the rental registry manager, said there are currently about 50 open cases, and most cases are closed within 30 days, though some have been open for up to 90 days. 

“Where you do have a slight issue is on some of your smaller landlords,” Love said. “A lot of times, they just don’t have additional capital to repair things completely.”

Welch said the information in the registry could be outdated and that the task force should consider recommending that the city conduct annual updates.

“Operators are changing, property managers are changing, things happen,” Welch said. “I think that the city needs to be putting effort into updating the information that’s registered.”

The next meeting of the Jackson Housing Task Force is scheduled for Monday, September 22 at 3:00 p.m. in the Warren A. Hood Building at 200 S. President St. 

The Current, a nonprofit news organization serving Lafayette and South Louisiana, is joining Deep South Today, a nonprofit network of local newsrooms that serves communities in Louisiana and Mississippi.

“We are tremendously excited to bring The Current into the Deep South Today network of newsrooms,” said Warwick Sabin, President and CEO of Deep South Today. “The Current is already doing an outstanding job of providing Lafayette with essential local journalism, and they have a lot of room to grow. We intend to use the resources and infrastructure at Deep South Today to support that growth and meet the need for critical news and information in Louisiana.”

“We launched The Current to serve Lafayette with vigorous, in-depth journalism,” said Christiaan Mader, The Current’s co-founder and executive editor. “Joining Deep South Today will amplify what we do with more reporting, more programming and more innovation.”

The Current will become the third newsroom in the Deep South Today network, alongside Mississippi Today and Verite News in New Orleans. Along with its staff, The Current will retain its mission, identity, community focus and editorial independence. Mader will serve as The Current’s executive director and editor-in-chief, remaining the local executive in charge of the newsroom.

Deep South Today will make investments in the coming year to expand editorial capacity at The Current through additional reporting staff, new topical coverage, and other support. The Current will leverage the centralized infrastructure at Deep South Today to enhance its technology, improve its audience engagement, add multimedia content, and achieve greater operational sustainability.

Deep South Today also looks forward to enhancing The Current’s suite of events and accelerating the growth of Big Towns, a summit created by The Current that brings leaders from around the country to Lafayette over two days for focused discussions about ideas that can advance mid-sized cities.

The Current is joining the Deep South Today network as it continues to develop extensive national and regional collaborations with partners that include the New York Times, ProPublica, Associated Press, Grist, The Trace, Open Campus, The Marshall Project, The Hechinger Report, KFF Health News, AJI/NOTUS, CatchLight, Gulf States Newsroom, and others.

“This merger helps Deep South Today as much as it helps The Current, because increased scale will bring more impact, more audience, and more efficiencies in our operations,” Sabin said. “Deep South Today is determined to meet the need for local news wherever it exists in our region, and the addition of The Current is an important step toward that goal.”

ABOUT DEEP SOUTH TODAY

Deep South Today is a nonprofit network of local newsrooms that includes Mississippi Today, Verite News, and The Current.

Founded in 2016, Mississippi Today is now one of the largest newsrooms in the state, and in 2023 it won the Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting. Verite News launched in 2022 in New Orleans, where it covers inequities facing communities of color. The Current is a nonprofit news organization founded in 2018 serving Lafayette and southern Louisiana.

With its regional scale and scope, Deep South Today is rebuilding and re-energizing local journalism in communities where it had previously eroded, and ensuring its long-term growth and sustainability.

ABOUT THE CURRENT

The Current is a nonprofit news organization serving Lafayette and South Louisiana.

Founded in 2018 by local journalists, The Current’s in-depth reporting connects Lafayette to stories that matter and helps readers understand how our community works — and how we can make it better.

CORNERSVILLE — It was impossible not to wonder what William Faulkner might think of what was happening on his land on a drizzly, humid Sunday last fall.

Several of Mississippi’s up-and-coming artists drew, painted and photographed the depths of the landscape around us. A saxophonist and accordionist played some folk melodies, their riffs echoing off a rotting wooden house and a scattering of oak trees. Joe Stinchcomb, one of the South’s best bartenders, slung gin cocktails from a folding table for more than 100 people who’d trekked out in their mud boots and rain jackets.

We were deep in the woods for the Plein Air Invitational, an artist showcase hosted by the University of Mississippi at Greenfield, Faulkner’s old mule farm 17 miles east of Oxford toward his hometown New Albany. This ground, though much less visited than the literary icon’s home Rowan Oak in Oxford, is sacred to those who know it.

After he sold the movie rights for his novel “The Unvanquished” in 1938, Faulkner bought 362 acres here, where generations of Faulkners and tenant families such as the McJunkinses grew cotton and corn over the years. The fields, trees and trails tucked away in these hills served as literary inspiration for many stories people now obsess over. From 1938 to 1945, when Faulkner spent much of his time at Greenfield, he worked on “The Hamlet,” “Go Down, Moses,” and “A Fable.” In “Absalom, Absalom!”, Faulkner’s map of Yoknapatawpha County placed the fictional McCallum farm on the very site of Greenfield Farm. Puskus Creek, which flows east to west through the property, became the setting for the quicksand scene in the film adaptation of “Intruder in the Dust.”

After his passing in 1962 and the changing of owners over the years, the property fell into neglect. The farm failed and went into foreclosure around 1990, when a local bank sold 20 acres of the land to the University of Mississippi. For nearly three decades in the university’s possession, the property was largely unused, save for a few field trips of the annual Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference. During this time, much of the history of the place was lost.

Sometime in 1992, Faulkner’s hunting cabin on the property burned. What remains of the farm’s structures are badly decomposing in the elements. There are no signs or markers signifying the place’s import, and there has been little reason to visit the land or even know it existed unless you knew someone who knew.

That’s all changing now. The 100 or so people who visited last fall had gathered for an art exhibition, yes. But their primary reason for coming out was not just to pay respect to the land’s importance and history, but to celebrate its future.

Attendees stood that day on the very site of what will become the Greenfield Farm Writers Residency, a retreat-style home for 40-50 writers per year. There will be a gathering lodge with offices, a library and a kitchen. Writers will have their own cabins to rest, write and focus. Overnight residents will receive a $1,000-per-week stipend.

So what would Faulkner, whose words have been parsed by generations of scholars and readers, think of all this?

“Later in his life, Faulkner advocated for solitary time and dwelled on the importance of writers having isolation and time to do their work,” said John T. Edge, the visionary and director of the Greenfield Farm Writers Residency. “We’re working intentionally to honor and build just that. A whole lot of people had planned for many years to responsibly leverage the Faulkner profile on this land to build something just like this.

“Mississippi is a state that depends on its writers, I would argue, more than any other to tell its story,” Edge continued. “So we’re going to offer Mississippians and anyone who feels some connection to Mississippi the place, the stipend, the time they need to plan, start, or finish their work.”

This project, for years just a vision and appealing concept drawn up on some fundraising material, just cleared its biggest benchmark yet.

In late August, the Institutions for Higher Learning board voted to approve the exterior design of the buildings on the property, a major step toward full approval of the construction process. Project leaders have raised $4.6 million for Greenfield Farm thus far, including a $750,000 legislative appropriation. Fundraising for additional capital costs and a separate $3 million endowment continues.

Multimillion dollar developments take time and plans often shift, but Edge said last week that project leaders hope to open the construction bid process this fall, they hope building will begin in the spring of 2026, and they hope to host a first cohort of residents in early 2027.

Several people have lent their expertise and perspectives to the project, but Edge is the leader of the endeavor. An accomplished author himself who is touring his new book ‘House of Smoke,’ Edge leads an initiative called The Mississippi Lab, a University of Mississippi-sponsored humanities laboratory for the state of Mississippi.

The idea for Greenfield Farm Writers Residency developed out of this initiative.

“I talk to a lot of writers. I claim a community of writers,” Edge said when asked about his drive for the development of Greenfield Farm. “We all ask each other, ‘Where’d you go to finish that book?’ or ‘How did you find time to write that draft?’ So many of them talk about the writers residences, trips to places like MacDowell in New Hampshire or Hedgebrook in Washington state. Beth Ann Fennelly just finished her new book ‘The Irish Goodbye’ at Loghaven just outside Knoxville. I finished my last book ‘The Potlikker Papers,’ the majority of it, at Rivendell near Sewanee. Writers of all sorts use these residencies.”

Edge is not doing this work alone. He’s leaned on a star-studded committee of advisors including Fennelly, Ralph Eubanks, Kiese Laymon, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Ebony Lumumba, and Natasha Trethewey — renowned Mississippi writers who know exactly how residencies can bolster the creative process.

“A residency gives you time away from the day-to-day,” said Eubanks, a faculty fellow and writer-in-residence at the University of Mississippi Center for the Study of Southern Culture, who finished his upcoming book “When It’s Darkness on the Delta” at a residency in Cambridge. “I didn’t have to think about meals, my job, anything other than my writing. Most of us who are doing this type of work, we take slices out of our day to keep routine going. What a residency does is pulls you out of that routine and gives you a period of intense focus. We are in a culture where time and attention are very valuable things. To have a place where you can have the time and you can devote the attention to the work is invaluable.”

The Greenfield planning group is thinking deliberately about details large and small. How should the kitchen be designed, and what types of food will be served? How much sunlight will enter the writer’s cabins during the summer, and how much shade will the property offer during the winter after the oaks have shed their leaves? What type of bed is most comfortable for rest, and where in the cabins should the reading chairs go?

The logo design for the residency features a turkey buzzard, an ode to Faulkner’s 1958 quote: “… if I were reincarnated, I’d want to come back a buzzard. Nothing hates him or envies him or wants him or needs him. He is never bothered or in danger, and he can eat anything.”

One thing that will set Greenfield apart from other writers’ residencies is the stipend for overnight residents who are selected. Edge and the advisers focused considerable attention — and are still working hard to fundraise — to this idea.

“Traditionally, residencies have been the province of the upper and upper-middle class,” Edge said. “But writers of all economic strata need access to this kind of asset. How can we make it possible for people who may not earn a lot per year but they want to take a month off to start or finish a book? To do that, they’d be giving up a huge chunk of their income and their family could suffer. So we plan to level the playing field and put a stipend in their pockets. We want anyone, regardless of their economic status, to be able to take advantage of this asset.”

And, of course, a primary focus of the project planners is Mississippi. Edge, who says University of Mississippi leaders and particularly Provost Noel Wilkin have been immensely supportive of the project, said the university will have no say in the application process.

Evidence of this full-state focus is clear even before construction begins. The Plein Air Invitational last fall was cohosted with Jackson State University, and this fall’s artist invitational on October 19 will be cohosted with Mississippi State University. Donations for the project have come from the Julia Reed Charitable Trust in Greenville, the Gertrude C. Ford Foundation in Jackson, the Robert M. Hearin Support Foundation in Jackson and numerous donors across Mississippi.

“This will be a UM asset, but it is being built to serve the entire state,” Edge said. “This will be a place of production and a place to make new content for all of Mississippi. And we’re thinking about Mississippi in the broadest kind of way. If you were born here, you’re certainly welcome. But what about someone from, say, Chicago, whose Mississippi roots go back four or five generations? Absolutely. We will open our doors to anyone who feels some connection to the state.”

One doesn’t have to be a literary buff to know that Mississippi produces more than its fair share of impactful writers. But the writers we already know aren’t the full story here, Greenfield planners say.

“We are the seat of storytellers,” Eubanks said. “But my excitement about this is it will help us really enhance the work of the next generation of our state’s storytellers. There are so many stories across this state that are buried or truly hiding in plain sight. People who want to tell those stories might not yet have found the right path to tell them. This residency could be life-changing for them and for us all.”

Editor’s note: This Mississippi Today Ideas essay is published as part of our Brain Drain project, which seeks answers to why Mississippians move out of state. To read more about the project, click here.

Growing up in Jackson, I had it good. My walk to school, Jackson Academy, was less than half a mile and if I wasn’t asleep or out with my friends, I was at school. I did show choir, sports broadcasting, tutored kids and spent a great deal of time studying.

I didn’t understand it at the time, but what made my formative years so great was my autonomy. I could stay at the school working a broadcast or rehearsal until 10 p.m., walk home and go to bed without a second thought.

Moving away to study civil engineering, I realized that most of my peers didn’t grow up with the level of autonomy that I enjoyed, and that played a big role in the passion I have for civil engineering. So far, I’ve learned a lot more than I bargained for, but it opened the door to understanding the broader complex system of infrastructure that connects and builds our communities.

After the elections this year, it was clear to me that Jackson is ready to do whatever it takes, and doing infrastructure right is crucial to setting the city up for success.

I believe downtown Jackson is key to creating that success.

Downtown Jackson is the most financially successful region of the city. That’s not a joke. As a civil engineering student well into my degree at Mississippi State, I have seen the latest developments in urban design.

In the context of Jackson, one company, North Carolina-based Urban 3, has stood out. Urban 3 helps cities by creating a comprehensive analysis of a city’s expenses and revenues.

Lafayette, Louisiana, is my favorite city to compare to Jackson. It’s a Southern city with rich history and culture. It has a population, suburban makeup and types of developments similar to Jackson’s.

Urban 3’s study of Lafayette found that the urban core generated the most in property taxes, enough to effectively subsidize properties and projects outside of the urban core. The rest of the city brought in roughly net zero or lost the city money. 

While Jackson has not been evaluated by Urban 3, every other city and town that has been evaluated has seen the same outcome. The densest urban parts of a community routinely bring in far more in tax revenue than they cost in infrastructure maintenance, policing, libraries, etc.

Jackson already has the buildings in place, but many of these buildings have no tenants or only partial occupancy. That is unacceptable. Downtown is the economic engine behind every community, and Jackson needs to repopulate its downtown to stand a chance at helping the rest of the city flourish.

Fortunately, the tools already exist to accomplish that goal. They just have to be used.

The first step is the most cost effective. I suggest updating downtown’s zoning codes to form-based codes (FBCs). FBCs do away with deciding which lot will be residential, commercial, etc.

Instead, FBCs establish a uniform look for a specified area. For example, an FBC may require building setbacks, height maximums and 50% of the first floor be commercial, hence FBCs are often more forgiving than traditional zoning codes.

Additionally, FBCs give property owners the power of the free market to decide how to best use their property; whether it be a grocery store, a law office or a furniture shop. This does not mean that all regulations should be abandoned, but you shouldn’t have to go through the lengthy process of rezoning the whole property for every new use.

The second step is the toughest to implement. I suggest that the city take a hard look at which properties still warrant new infrastructure spending.The city has lost thousands of residents since its peak population, and some neighborhoods simply do not have the number of residents to justify new roads or utilities.

Jackson is currently overbuilt, and the city needs to put what money it does have into investments that have the best odds of stabilizing the city.

If Jackson does not take care of the areas that can and currently do bring in net positive tax revenue for the city, then there is no chance for the rest of the city. Only by obsessively maintaining the infrastructure, utilities and public services for downtown will the city set up its golden goose with the best odds for success.

The third step is the most costly, but proven. Downtown should be designed at a human scale. To do that, streets must be built around people and their safety first. In the context of civil engineering, many experts put our roadways into one of two buckets.

The first bucket is labeled “roads.” Roads should be used to get you from point A to point B as fast as possible. Therefore, it would be absurd to build a Walmart with direct access to I-55 because of the danger of entering and exiting, not to mention the slow down of traffic along the interstate.

In the other bucket there are “streets.” Streets should be used to connect a storefront to its customers, building community wealth. Like the Walmart on I-55, it would be an equally bad idea to let drivers fly down the street with no way to slow them down.

Unfortunately, many of our roadways look like something in between the street and the road I just described, neither moving people efficiently nor building community wealth.

If you sit down for just a few minutes along West, State or Pascagoula streets, you will see cars flying down the road in what is supposed to be a downtown. Downtown can not be a safe and comfortable space for people of all ages when cars essentially have a drag strip to go as fast as they please.

Fortunately, the city has shown that it knows how to reorient these overgrown streets as proven on East Capitol Street. One lane was removed, roundabouts were built and sidewalks given more separation from traffic.

To prove my point, walk down Capitol Street and then walk down any of the three aforementioned streets. The difference is night and day.

Regardless of everything that can and will be done, some businesses and residents will still choose to leave. That is OK, because others will see the success of downtown and choose to move in, not because it will happen, but because it is already happening. Remo’s, Aladdin and Mayflower are all great new additions.

If this city values long term fiscal stability and strong community, it will capitalize on the wealth it has today instead of squandering what is left. 

Walker Patton Lake, born and raised in Jackson, is a junior enrolled at Mississippi State University studying civil & environmental engineering. He has had two internships  with the Mississippi Department of Transportation and has a keen interest in downtown Jackson.

Mississippi Today is excited to announce Bashirah Mack as its first full-time Video Producer.

Bashirah, from Atlanta, is a filmmaker, video producer, and video editor who has contributed to reporting for The Washington Post, City Bureau, and Chicago Public Media. In 2023, she participated in Netflix’s Documentary Archival Researcher Training program.

Bashirah earned a master’s degree in 2022 from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, where she was a Marlon T. Riggs Fellow for Documentary Filmmaking.

In 2022, Bashirah completed her first short documentary about one woman’s legal fight against pregnancy discrimination.

“Bashirah’s skill set instantly elevates Mississippi Today’s video presence,” said Richard Lake, Mississippi Today’s Video Editor. “Bashirah’s experience covering marginalized communities across the country while blending in her creativity and artistry results in truly compelling work. I’m so excited for Mississippi to see her work.”

Eager to elevate human-centered stories, she has already started making connections.

“I’ve been meeting people where they are—on the bus, at the library, on the street, in the coffee shops—and I’m excited to explore more, to learn from the people who know Jackson deeply—the locals.”

Bashirah will serve on Mississippi Today’s newly formed Video Team, which is tasked with translating Mississippi Today reporting into compelling video for audiences across the state.

“Producing is my strength,” Mack said, “I look forward to using my production, editing, research, and aerial photography skills to do what I’m trained to do – for documentary, for video news, for Mississippi Today, and most of all for the people.”

The newest Hinds County circuit court judge is working in a courthouse where years earlier one of his family members was sentenced. 

Judge Damon Stevenson became the fifth circuit judge of one of the largest and busiest circuit courts in the state, bringing Hinds County up to the most number of circuit judges in Mississippi. 

At a Friday investiture ceremony, he said he wants his courtroom to be a place of redemption, justice and mercy, especially for troubled young people to help them become productive members of society. Sharing those goals urged him to talk about his late father, who had been sentenced in the Hinds courthouse, as an example of how people can change regardless of where they started in life.  

Stevenson also wants to play a role in making Hinds County a safe place, which is where he considers home and is raising a family. 

“I just want to do right by people. I just want to be fair. I just want a court that moves cases, that is responsible to the community,” the Clinton resident said. 

Gov. Tate Reeves appointed Stevenson, who began work Sept. 1. Stevenson’s term runs through Jan. 4, 2027, and elections will be held starting in November 2026. 

Lawmakers created the judgeship during the recent legislative session under House Bill 1544. It was part of state-mandated judicial and legislative redistricting based on the most recent U.S. Census. Population can determine whether a district gains, loses or maintains judges or chancellors. 

At the ceremony, Senior Circuit Judge Winston Kidd, who taught Stevenson at Mississippi College School of Law, said his former student has developed into a capable courtroom attorney who has the temperament to be a trial judge. 

Kidd also said that a fifth judge will help the Seventh Circuit Court District handle more cases and improve case flow – a need he and other Hinds County judges have raised. 

On Friday, city and county government leaders, former colleagues and classmates said they look forward to working with Stevenson and said they believe he would do a good job. 

U.S. District Court Judge Carlton Reeves administered the oath of office while Stevenson stood by his wife and two daughters. Other family members also attended the ceremony. 

Prior to the appointment, Stevenson served as a judge for the Byram Municipal Court since 2018. 

Stevenson was admitted to practice law in 2008 and worked in private practice taking criminal defense, personal and family law cases. He has litigated criminal and civil cases in state and federal court. 

His work includes serving as a special master for mental health commitments in Hinds County Chancery Court and as a federal probation officer who conducted pre-sentence investigations in U.S. District Court. He also worked for the Mississippi Youth Justice Project and the Southern Poverty Law Center.  

He is a Brandon native and graduated from Tougaloo College where he studied economics. He also studied at the University of Mississippi and universities out of the state. 

CLINTON — There’s still so much James Robinson doesn’t know about the woman in the photograph.

It was always on the wall in his aunt’s house, but he never knew who she was until he found a news article about her. Now, he gets to share her story.

The woman’s name is Sally Lee, a witness and survivor of the 1875 Clinton Massacre. Robinson, a 76-year-old retiree and Clinton native, is her great-great-great grandson.

On Sept. 4, 1875, a Republican political rally in Clinton turned into a tragedy when white disruptors fired into the crowd, killing multiple people. What followed was several days of racist violence that helped bring Reconstruction in Mississippi to a bloody, tragic end.

Last week scholars, political figures and descendants of victims and survivors came together to commemorate the massacre’s 150th anniversary.

DeeDee Baldwin, an engagement librarian and associate professor at Mississippi State University, organized the commemoration events. She learned about the Clinton Massacre while researching Black state legislators during the Reconstruction era. 

“It’s a pivotal event, not just in Mississippi history but in national history, and hardly anybody knows about it,” Baldwin said.

Commemorations took place last week. On Wednesday, Baldwin joined a panel of historians to discuss the massacre during a “History is Lunch” event at the Two Mississippi Museums. On Thursday morning, there was a brief reflection at the historical markers for the massacre, followed that evening by another panel at Mississippi College. Descendents of the massacre’s victims and survivors spoke at a memorial service at Mount Hood Missionary Baptist Church on Saturday.

The events were sponsored by Mount Hood Missionary Baptist Church, Mississippi College, Mississippi State University’s Ulysses S. Grant Presidential Library and Together for Hope.

Sen. Hillman Frazier, a Democrat from Jackson, authored a Senate resolution to recognize the massacre’s anniversary. He spoke at the commemoration event on Thursday morning, emphasizing the importance of political participation. 

“They didn’t have more bullets than the opposition, but they had the vote,” Frazier said. “Make your vote count.”

At the markers on Thursday, Robinson carried around a copy of Lee’s picture in a clear sheet protector. On the back of the page was a copy of an article from 1961 that The Clarion Ledger published about her life. This article, which inspired him to start learning more about her and his family’s history, retells notable stories in Lee’s life, including how she and her son survived during the Clinton Massacre.

The bloodshed occurred during the Reconstruction era. Before the partisan political makeup of today, the Republican Party was majority-Black and controlled much of state politics. Black men in Mississippi, granted voting rights and the ability to hold office by the federal government post-Civil War, had been voting for years and many held elected offices.

These post-war realities did not sit well with white Southern Democrats, who sought to restore white supremacy by any means necessary. In 1875, they devised the Mississippi Plan, a strategy to use fraud and brutal violence to suppress the Black vote and reestablish Democratic control of Southern state governments.

The fateful day in Clinton began as a political rally and picnic held by Mississippi’s Republican Party ahead of the 1875 statewide elections. 

About 1,500 to 2,500 people were in attendance, most of them Black families. Eighteen of the approximately 75 white attendees were Democrats. They were part of the White Liners, what was essentially a paramilitary unit for the state Democratic Party.

In an effort to preserve peace, the Republicans allowed Democratic Senate candidate Amos R. Johnston to speak at the event. However, when Republican newspaper owner and Union veteran Captain H.T. Fisher spoke, according to news accounts of the day, he was heckled and tensions quickly turned into bloodshed.

Gunshots rang out in the crowd. Many white Democrats fell into formation and fired into the crowd. At the rally, three white people and four Black people were dead, and six white people and 20 Black people were wounded. Black women and children frantically ran for safety. 

One of them was Lee, who ran with her son in her arms. Spotting a hollow in a sycamore tree, she placed the baby there and hid until it was safe.

Clinton’s white mayor at the time had called for assistance from towns nearby based on a rumor that armed Black people would storm the town. By nightfall, several hundred White Liners entered the town. They spent the next day hunting, beating and killing Black residents. During this time, an estimated 50 Black people had been killed.

In 1876, a congressional report debunked the Democrats’ narrative that the massacre was an attack on white citizens by armed Black Mississippians. They found instead that white Mississippi Democrats plotted to disrupt Republican political activities and “to inaugurate an era of terror.”

By 1877, Reconstruction was over and the last federal troops left the South, allowing white Democrats to regain political power and establish the most stringent of laws to suppress and endanger Black Mississippians during the Jim Crow era.

Today, 150 years later, Baldwin hopes people who learn about the story realize “the importance of participating in democracy and protecting it.”

Frazier emphasized this point when speaking at the historical marker on Sept. 4. He also spoke out against anti-DEI legislation, saying it held up progress for women and Black people. This sentiment has become particularly pronounced in recent weeks. Last month a federal judge struck down an anti-DEI guidance from the U.S. Department of Education. Another federal judge blocked Mississippi’s anti-DEI law for the foreseeable future, concerned it would violate Mississippians’ constitutional rights.

Three years prior, the state enacted a ban on teaching critical race theory in schools and universities. Mississippi Today reported last week that the University of Mississippi and Mississippi State University halted funding for student organizations amid uncertainty over the law.

“They want to sanitize history,” Frazier said at the Clinton Massacre markers. “But we have to make sure we tell history the way it was.”

Robinson, still holding on to that photo of Lee, expressed hope that people attending the commemorations learned that “there’s a good side and a bad side to human beings, and you have to choose which side that you’re going to be on.”

TYLERTOWN — As an ominous storm approached Buddy Anthony’s one-story brick home, he took shelter in his new Ford F-250 pickup parked under a nearby carport.

Seconds later, a tornado tore apart Anthony’s home and damaged the truck while lifting it partly in the air. Anthony emerged unhurt. But he had to replace his vehicle with a used truck that became his home while waiting for President Donald Trump to issue a major disaster declaration so that federal money would be freed for individuals reeling from loss. That took weeks. 

“You wake up in the truck and look out the windshield and see nothing. That’s hard. That’s hard to swallow,” Anthony said.

Disaster survivors are having to wait longer to get aid from the federal government, according to a new Associated Press analysis of decades of data. On average, it took less than two weeks for a governor’s request for a presidential disaster declaration to be granted in the 1990s and early 2000s. That rose to about three weeks during the past decade under presidents from both major parties. It’s taking more than a month, on average, during Trump’s current term, the AP found.

The delays mean individuals must wait to receive federal aid for daily living expenses, temporary lodging and home repairs. Delays in disaster declarations also can hamper recovery efforts by local officials uncertain whether they will receive federal reimbursement for cleaning up debris and rebuilding infrastructure. The AP collaborated with Mississippi Today and Mississippi Free Press on the effects of these delays for this report.

“The message that I get in the delay, particularly for the individual assistance, is that the federal government has turned its back on its own people,” said Bob Griffin, dean of the College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security and Cybersecurity at the University at Albany in New York. “It’s a fundamental shift in the position of this country.”

The wait for disaster aid has grown as Trump remakes government

The Federal Emergency Management Agency often consults immediately with communities to coordinate their initial disaster response. But direct payments to individuals, nonprofits and local governments must wait for a major disaster declaration from the president, who first must receive a request from a state, territory or tribe. Major disaster declarations are intended only for the most damaging events that are beyond the resources of states and local governments.

Trump has approved more than two dozen major disaster declarations since taking office in January, with an average wait of almost 34 days after a request. That ranged from a one-day turnaround after July’s deadly flash flooding in Texas to a 67-day wait after a request for aid because of a Michigan ice storm. The average wait is up from a 24-day delay during his first term and is nearly four times as long as the average for former Republican President George H.W. Bush, whose term from 1989-1993 coincided with the implementation of a new federal law setting parameters for disaster determinations. 

The delays have grown over time, regardless of the party in power. Former Democratic President Joe Biden, in his last year in office, averaged 26 days to declare major disasters — longer than any year under former Democratic President Barack Obama.

FEMA did not respond to the AP’s questions about what factors are contributing to the trend.

Others familiar with FEMA noted that its process for assessing and documenting natural disasters has become more complex over time. Disasters have also become more frequent and intense because of climate change, which is mostly caused by the burning of fuels such as gas, coal and oil.

The wait for disaster declarations has spiked as Trump’s administration undertakes an ambitious makeover of the federal government that has shed thousands of workers and reexamined the role of FEMA. A recently published letter from current and former FEMA employees warned the cuts could become debilitating if faced with a large-enough disaster. The letter also lamented that the Trump administration has stopped maintaining or removed long-term planning tools focused on extreme weather and disasters.

Shortly after taking office, Trump floated the idea of “getting rid” of FEMA, asserting: “It’s very bureaucratic, and it’s very slow.”

FEMA’s acting chief suggested more recently that states should shoulder more responsibility for disaster recovery, though FEMA thus far has continued to cover three-fourths of the costs of public assistance to local governments, as required under federal law. FEMA pays the full cost of its individual assistance.

Former FEMA Administrator Pete Gaynor, who served during Trump’s first term, said the delay in issuing major disaster declarations likely is related to a renewed focus on making sure the federal government isn’t paying for things state and local governments could handle.

“I think they’re probably giving those requests more scrutiny,” Gaynor said. “And I think it’s probably the right thing to do, because I think the (disaster) declaration process has become the ‘easy button’ for states.”

The Associated Press on Monday received a statement from White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson in response to a question about why it is taking longer to issue major natural disaster declarations:

“President Trump provides a more thorough review of disaster declaration requests than any Administration has before him. Gone are the days of rubber stamping FEMA recommendations – that’s not a bug, that’s a feature. Under prior Administrations, FEMA’s outsized role created a bloated bureaucracy that disincentivized state investment in their own resilience. President Trump is committed to right-sizing the Federal government while empowering state and local governments by enabling them to better understand, plan for, and ultimately address the needs of their citizens. The Trump Administration has expeditiously provided assistance to disasters while ensuring taxpayer dollars are spent wisely to supplement state actions, not replace them.”

In Mississippi, frustration festered during wait for aid

The tornado that struck Anthony’s home in rural Tylertown on March 15 packed winds up to 140 mph. It was part of a powerful system that wrecked homes, businesses and lives across multiple states.

Mississippi’s governor requested a federal disaster declaration on April 1. Trump granted that request 50 days later, on May 21, while approving aid for both individuals and public entities.

On that same day, Trump also approved eight other major disaster declarations for storms, floods or fires in seven other states. In most cases, more than a month had passed since the request and about two months since the date of those disasters.

If a presidential declaration and federal money had come sooner, Anthony said he wouldn’t have needed to spend weeks sleeping in a truck before he could afford to rent the trailer where he is now living. His house was uninsured, Anthony said, and FEMA eventually gave him $30,000. 

In nearby Jayess in Lawrence County, Dana Grimes had insurance but not enough to cover the full value of her damaged home. After the eventual federal declaration, Grimes said FEMA provided about $750 for emergency expenses, but she is now waiting for the agency to determine whether she can receive more.

“We couldn’t figure out why the president took so long to help people in this country,” Grimes said. “I just want to tie up strings and move on. But FEMA — I’m still fooling with FEMA.”

Jonathan Young said he gave up on applying for FEMA aid after the Tylertown tornado killed his 7-year-old son and destroyed their home. The process seemed too difficult, and federal officials wanted paperwork he didn’t have, Young said. He made ends meet by working for those cleaning up from the storm.

“It’s a therapy for me,” Young said, “to pick up the debris that took my son away from me.”

Historically, presidential disaster declarations containing individual assistance have been approved more quickly than those providing assistance only to public entities, according to the AP’s analysis. That remains the case under Trump, though declarations for both types are taking longer.

About half the major disaster declarations approved by Trump this year have included individual assistance.

Some people whose homes are damaged turn to shelters hosted by churches or local nonprofit organizations in the initial chaotic days after a disaster. Others stay with friends or family or go to a hotel, if they can afford it.

But some insist on staying in damaged homes, even if they are unsafe, said Chris Smith, who administered FEMA’s individual assistance division under three presidents from 2015-2022. If homes aren’t repaired properly, mold can grow, compounding the recovery challenges.

That’s why it’s critical for FEMA’s individual assistance to get approved quickly — ideally, within two weeks of a disaster, said Smith, who’s now a disaster consultant for governments and companies.

“You want to keep the people where they are living. You want to ensure those communities are going to continue to be viable and recover,” Smith said. “And the earlier that individual assistance can be delivered … the earlier recovery can start.”

In the periods waiting for declarations, the pressure falls on local officials and volunteers to care for victims and distribute supplies. 

In Walthall County, where Tylertown is, insurance agent Les Lampton remembered watching the weather news as the first tornado missed his house by just an eighth of a mile. Lampton, who moonlights as a volunteer firefighter, navigated the collapsed trees in his yard and jumped into action. About 45 minutes later, the second tornado hit just a mile away.

“It was just chaos from there on out,” Lampton said. 

Walthall County, with a population of about 14,000, hasn’t had a working tornado siren in about 30 years, Lampton said. He added there isn’t a public safe room in the area, although a lot of residents have ones in their home. 

Rural areas with limited resources are hit hard by delays in receiving funds through FEMA’s public assistance program, which, unlike individual assistance, only reimburses local entities after their bills are paid. Long waits can stoke uncertainty and lead cost-conscious local officials to pause or scale-back their recovery efforts.

In Walthall County, officials initially spent about $700,000 cleaning up debris, then suspended the cleanup for more than a month because they couldn’t afford to spend more without assurance they would receive federal reimbursement, said county emergency manager Royce McKee. Meanwhile, rubble from splintered trees and shattered homes remained piled along the roadside, creating unsafe obstacles for motorists and habitat for snakes and rodents.

When it received the federal declaration, Walthall County took out a multimillion-dollar loan to pay contractors to resume the cleanup.

“We’re going to pay interest and pay that money back until FEMA pays us,” said Byran Martin, an elected county supervisor. “We’re hopeful that we’ll get some money by the first of the year, but people are telling us that it could be [longer].”

Lampton, who took after his father when he joined the volunteer firefighters 40 years ago, lauded the support of outside groups such as Cajun Navy, Eight Days of Hope, Samaritan’s Purse and others. That’s not to mention the neighbors who brought their own skid steers and power saws to help clear trees and other debris, he added. 

“That’s the only thing that got us through this storm, neighbors helping neighbors,” Lampton said. “If we waited on the government, we were going to be in bad shape.”

Lieb reported from Jefferson City, Missouri, and Wildeman from Hartford, Connecticut.

Update 98/25: This story has been updated to include a White House statement released after publication.