Your mind may still be stuck in the realm of winter’s cold and snowstorms.
But on March 3, 1966, 60 years ago today, an F5 tornado tore a 202-mile long path across central and eastern Mississippi into western Alabama. Of the 58 people killed by the twister, 57 were in central Mississippi, still the state’s second deadliest tornado since 1950, according to the National Weather Service in Jackson.
The tornado first obliterated the Candlestick Park shopping center on the south side of Jackson, Mississippi, throwing some vehicles over a half mile and ripping pavement out of the ground. It then brushed the north side of Thompson Field, now Jackson-Evers International Airport, damaging the Mississippi Air National Guard base…