Mississipi RV Park Recovers After EF4 Tornado Damage – RVBusiness – Breaking RV Industry News
Sean Vidrine, CEO of Four Points RV Resorts, LLC, has advice for anyone hearing a tornado warning.
“If a tornado warning is issued and you are in that path, you should take it seriously and seek shelter,” he said. “Do not try to ride it out in an RV.”
Vidrine speaks from experience. On March 15, a tornado warning was issued for southern Mississippi. That afternoon, an EF4 tornado tore through one of his campgrounds, Paradise Ranch in Tylertown, Miss., destroying its 210 campsites and all 27 cabins.
“We lost 135 acres of 40-year-old pine trees,” he said, adding that local media reports estimated the tornado to be a mile wide.
Fortunately, the park was mostly empty when the tornado struck.
“Because of the threat of severe weather that weekend, we had a lot of cancellations. There were only eight campers at the park at the time,” he said. “Most of the people took shelter in our bar and grill. Several stayed in their campers and rode it out.”
Two of the campers who stayed in their travel trailer had to be extricated from the toppled vehicle by park staff.
“We had a couple of people that were trapped,” Vidrine said. “Our staff had to help open the door to get them out. One lady’s foot was stuck between the (trailer’s) wall and the slideout.”
Vidrine said they were too shaken to speak to Woodall’s Campground Magazine after riding out the tornado in their RV.
“We were very lucky we did not have any fatalities,” he said.
Vidrine is no stranger to violent weather. A life-long resident of St. Charles, La., he survived Hurricane Rita in 2005 with “no major impacts.” However, he did suffer some damage to his home and lost 30 rental properties in 2020 as a result of Hurricanes Laura and Delta.
Vidrine got into the campground business in 2019 when he purchased Paradise Ranch. At that time, the park had 91 sites and four cabins. He subsequently expanded it to 210 sites and 27 cabins.
Operating through St. Charles-based Four Points RV Resorts, LLC, Vidrine and business partners have since acquired several other campgrounds, including Jellystone Park locations in Pittsfield, Ill. and Monticello, Iowa. They have also acquired converted existing campgrounds into Jellystone Park locations in Mansfield, Penn. and Lake Charles, La.
Vidrine said he had to close Paradise Ranch after the tornado because of the amount of damage to the park.
“We’re in the process of cleaning up and working with insurance to try to get repairs underway,” he said, adding that some of his campers have been coming to help him clean up the park.
“We’ve been very fortunate with the amount of support we’ve received from volunteers and from campers coming in to help clean up,” he said, noting that volunteers have also been helping people displaced by the tornado in Tylertown.
“People are showing up to hand food out. It’s been awesome to see people come together,” he said.
