Jackson Free Press

PEARL, Miss. (AP) — Dagmar Almenares, who lives in the Highlands mobile home park near Mississippi's biggest airport, said he considers himself lucky to be alive. The 33-year-old Cuba native and his 62-year-old mother were in their rented trailer Monday evening when a tornado picked it up and blew it apart.

"It's hard to explain," Almenares said Tuesday. "I was rolling around inside the trailer, then it landed."

Residents of the sprawling trailer park, about five miles from the Jackson-Evers International Airport, spent Tuesday picking through the rubble of more than a dozen homes that were obliterated or heavily damaged. No one was killed, but several people were injured. Almenares had a cut across the top of his nose and two stitches below his right eyebrow. His mother had an arm injury.

At least 12 people have died in Mississippi from a dangerous storm system that spawned a chain of deadly tornadoes over three days in the South. Officials say seven died in Winston County and three others died in traffic accidents caused by wind or heavy rain.

The black metal beams that were the base of Almenares' mobile home landed across the street, about 50 yards away. The rest of the home landed on top of a neighbor's mobile home in a twisted heap of metal, lumber, furniture and appliances. Several men helped him pick through the debris under blue skies Tuesday.

A neighbor, Jessica Stokes, said she was at work when the tornado flipped her rented trailer onto the one next to it. Her friend, Magen McNair, helped her pick through fragments of wood paneling and broken glass to look for clothes, photos and other valuables.

McNair bent over to pick up an 8-by-10 inch studio portrait of a smiling baby girl.

"Aww, that's you," McNair told Stokes' 12-year-old daughter. "I remember when you were a baby."

In Tupelo, about 2,000 homes and 100 businesses were damaged or destroyed, the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal reported. In surrounding Lee County, the figure was 131 homes and two businesses.

The buzzing of chain saws cut through an otherwise still, hazy Tuesday morning in Tupelo's Joyner neighborhood. Homeowners walked along the debris-strewn roads, some of which were blocked by massive old oaks that fell. Some of the 20- and 30-foot-tall trees landed on cars and homes.

"This does not even look like a place that I'm familiar with right now," Pam Montgomery said. "You look down some of the streets, and it doesn't even look like there is a street."

In Winston County, day care center owner Ruth Bennett died clutching a child as a tornado wiped her business off its foundation, strewing it into the backyard of a neighboring home. The child was taken to a hospital in Jackson with serious injuries.

Lee County Coroner Carolyn Gillentine Green said Tuesday that Cassandra Blansett, 39, of Lee County, was killed when her car slid off Palmetto Road near Verona in north Mississippi. Blansett was not in the direct path of Monday's tornado; the accident was caused by excessive rain and wind shear.

Separately, police identified the motorist killed in Monday night's storm on Old Highway 49 as Sharon Pell, 49, of Richland. A tornado threw Pell's car about 200 yards into a field near a fire station.

Nicky Lee Painter, 56, of Greenville, died in Issaquena County when his minivan hydroplaned off U.S. 61 and hit a pickup truck Monday. Sharkey County Coroner Angela Eason said Painter's vehicle was mangled.

Associated Press writers Adrian Sainz in Tupelo and Jeff Amy in Louisville contributed to this report.