Around 8 p.m. on March 24, a violent tornado touched down near Mississippi’s border with Louisiana. The tornado was a 4 on the Enhanced Fujita (EF) scale and had wind speeds of up to 170 mph. It traveled almost 60 miles and was on the ground for more than an hour.

Shortly thereafter, another tornado touched down near Black Hawk, Miss. The slightly weaker EF3 tornado flipped over cars, demolished mobile homes and ripped through power lines with maximum winds of 150 mph.

The National Weather Service confirmed a total of seven tornadoes hit on March 24, claiming multiple lives, destroying homes and displacing hundreds.

Today, March 31, WLBT, the NBC affiliate in Jackson, Miss., and its parent company, Gray Television, are hosting  Gray Day of Giving, a televised donation relief drive following devastating tornadoes in the Mississippi Delta.

Gray stations in Alabama, Louisiana, Tennessee and Mississippi will join in the relief drive efforts organized by WLBT.

To help launch the Gray Day of Giving, WLBT and Gray Television are making a $25,000 donation to jumpstart the donation efforts.

“Immediately following the tornadoes, we knew we had to organize a donation relief drive,” says Ted Fortenberry, WLBT’S GM. “Mississippi has been hit with a lot of tornadoes over the years, but this is definitely one of the worst I’ve ever seen.”

When you donate to this Gray Day of Giving, 100% of your donation is applied to the Salvation Army relief efforts for Mississippi. Donate now at gray.tv/relief or text MSTORNADOES to 51555 to make a monetary donation.

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