A pet tortoise who was displaced from its human family’s home during a deadly outbreak of tornadoes in Mississippi in March was recently reunited with its people.
The reunion – which went viral on corners of the internet dedicated to uplifting news stories – occurred after the Central Mississippi Turtle Rescue organization asked its social media followers on 6 April for help in finding the tortoise’s owners after the animal was brought to the group to be treated for injuries.
Central Mississippi Turtle Rescue posted a day later that the family of the tortoise – which was found lost near Tylertown – had been located, and that the animal evidently “was either blown by the winds or he walked out after the storm took out their fence”.
“He’s got some injuries to overcome, but he’s at least back in the arms of his family. They missed him so much and are so relieved and grateful to have him back,” the group’s post – first reported by local news station WAPT – said of what it described as the “tornado tortoise”.
On Sunday, the Associated Press published an interview identifying the tortoise in question as Myrtle and its grateful owner as Tiffany Emanuel.
Emanuel recounted how she and her family fled their home in rural Kokomo as a tornado hit on 15 March. They later came back to find two pine trees had fallen atop Myrtle’s backyard home. And there was no sign of Myrtle until it turned out a neighbor of the Emanuel family found the tortoise and brought it to Central Mississippi Turtle Rescue for medical treatment on 4 April, the AP reported.
The group’s founder and co-director, Christy Milbourne, told the AP: “The lady who found the tortoise called me and said she had run into the owners. She said, ‘I think they’re going to be calling you.’ So I was excited, and then the owners did call and say, ‘Yeah, that’s my tortoise.’”
Central Mississippi Turtle Rescue had said it would ask anyone trying to recover Myrtle to identify “a very unique detail” on the animal. The group did not elaborate.
Whatever the case, after reuniting with Myrtle, Emanuel told the AP that the tortoise was being nursed back to health.
“He’s been through a lot,” Emanuel reportedly said. “I know that he knows just as much as I do that every step of the way I’m going to be there helping him, caring for him, making sure he gets, you know, the help that he needs.”
Myrtle’s tale captured attention in Mississippi and beyond after state officials there reported 18 tornadoes on 14 and 15 March. Amid that particular twister outbreak, seven people were killed, dozens more were injured, officials said. Officials in Mississippi also said that more than 1,000 homes, businesses and farms were either damaged or destroyed.
Three of the tornadoes were given an intensity classification of EF-3, which is considered severe and given to twisters with wind speeds of between 136 and 165mph. One was an EF-4, a classification given to tornadoes with winds of between 166 and 200mph.
The twisters in Mississippi were part of a larger tornado outbreak affecting other parts of the US south as well at the time.
Referring to having recovered Myrtle, Emanuel told the AP: “It feels good to kind of have some kind of happy [thing] out of so much [sadness] and grief and loss.”
