PEARLINGTON, Miss — St. Tammany Parish native Jeffery Crossland nervously watched in awe as a tornado swirled near his camp near Pearlington, Miss., on Friday afternoon.
"I got a little scared with it, but I figured I was safer under here than running out of here with my truck," Crossland told WWL Louisiana from under the stilted camp. "So I just sat it out. The wind got up here to at least about 50 or 60 miles an hour because it was moving my truck."
The National Weather Service confirmed a tornado moving east at 25 mph near Pearlington, approximately nine miles southwest of Waveland, Miss.
Crossland said he witnessed what he called a waterspout emerge as the sky grew ominous.
"I was sitting in a truck when the weather turned and it got dark," Crossland explained. "The [waterspout] came across and it looked like it was going to dissipate and go in the air. It came back down and it jumped the railroad tracks and went back between the railroad tracks and the tree line over here.
"It was amazing," he added, saying he believed the twister was 300 feet wide or more. "It was it was big. It kind of freaked me out."
Living so close to the tracks, Crossland said it thought a train was barreling down on him
"I couldn't even hear myself thinking," he explained. "Sounded like the train was right next to the truck. Then between that, the wind shear, and the rain here, it was pretty amazing."
► Get breaking news from your neighborhood delivered directly to you by downloading the new FREE WWL-TV News app now in the IOS App Store or Google Play.