Tupelo, Mississippi

===Severe weather===
[[File:1936 Tupelo Miss. tornado cleanup.png|thumb|left|Students clear the ruins of the segregated [[Carver High School (Tupelo, Mississippi)|Lee County Training School]], a month after the 1936 tornado]]
The spring of 1936 brought Tupelo one of its worst-ever natural disasters, part of the [[1936 Tupelo-Gainesville tornado outbreak|Tupelo-Gainesville tornado outbreak]] of April 5–6 in that year.<ref>[http://dlg.galileo.usg.edu/tornado/exhibit/ "Tupelo-Gainesville Outbreak"], Digital Library of Georgia, 2008, retrieved 12 Sept 2011</ref> The storm leveled 48 city blocks and over 200 homes, killing 216 people and injuring more than 700 persons.<ref name="MSouth"/> It struck at night, destroying large residential areas on the city's north side. Among the survivors was [[Elvis Presley]], then a baby. Obliterating the Gum Pond neighborhood, the tornado dropped most of the victims' bodies in the pond. The storm has since been rated F5 on the [[Fujita scale]].<ref>[http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/tornadoes-devastate-tupelo-and-gainesville "This Day In History; Tornadoes Devastate Tupelo and Gainesville"], The History Channel online, retrieved 13 September 2011</ref> The Tupelo Tornado is recognized as one of the deadliest in U.S. history.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/30/us/deadliest-tornadoes |title=The 10 deadliest U.S. tornadoes on record |publisher=CNN.com |access-date=2013-07-02}}</ref>

The Mississippi State Geologist estimated a final death toll of 233 persons, but 100 whites were still reported as hospitalized at the time. Because the white newspapers did not publish news about blacks until the 1940s and 1950s, historians have had difficulty learning the fates of blacks injured in the tornado. Based on this, historians now estimate the death toll was higher than in official records.<ref name="MSouth">[http://www.midsouthtornadoes.msstate.edu/info.php?id=162&county=Itawamba&state=MS&count=2 "Significant Tornadoes Update 1992–1995"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130520102236/http://www.midsouthtornadoes.msstate.edu/info.php?id=162&county=Itawamba&state=MS&count=2|date=May 20, 2013}}, Mid-South Tornadoes, Mississippi State University</ref><ref>Martis D. Ramage, Jr. ''Tupelo, Mississippi, Tornado of 1936'',</ref> Fire broke out at the segregated Lee County Training School, which was destroyed. Its bricks were salvaged for other uses.

The area is subject to tornadoes. On [[Tornado outbreak sequence of May 7–11, 2008|May 8, 2008]],  one rated an EF3 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale struck the town. On [[Tornado outbreak of April 27–30, 2014|April 28, 2014]], another large EF3 tornado struck Tupelo and the surrounding communities, causing significant damage. On the night of [[Tornado outbreak of May 2–4, 2021|May 2, 2021]], two EF1&nbsp;tornadoes formed near town with the second being a large tornado that directly struck the northwest side of downtown, prompting a [[tornado emergency]] to be issued by the [[National Weather Service]].<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/02/us/tupelo-mississippi-tornado/index.html |title=A large and destructive tornado has touched down in Tupelo, Mississippi |publisher=CNN.com |access-date=May 3, 2021}}</ref>
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