More than two months after a tornado demolished his Mississippi home, Brian Lowery still sifts through the rubble, hoping to find a tie clip his mother gave him, made from the center stone of her wedding band.
“I still have hope,” Lowery said.
He, his wife and 13-year-old son made it to safety before the tornado ripped apart their trailer home of 15 years during a severe weather outbreak in mid-March. But the recovery since has been slow and painful. Mississippi’s request for federal aid is still pending before the Federal Emergency Management Agency, meaning badly needed assistance has not yet made it to his hard-hit community of Tylertown.
“I don’t know what you got to do or what you got to have to be able to be declared for a federal disaster area because this is pretty bad,” Lowery said. “We can’t help you because, whatever, we’re waiting on a letter; we’re waiting on som…