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Today: April 18, 2025
Today: April 18, 2025

A beloved pet tortoise is reunited with its family weeks after disappearing in a Mississippi tornado

Tornado Tortoise
April 13, 2025
SOPHIE BATES - AP

KOKOMO, Miss. (AP) โ€” Myrtle, a cherished pet tortoise, has been reunited with its family in Mississippi weeks after disappearing during a deadly tornado outbreak in March.

โ€œHeโ€™s been through a lot,โ€ said Myrtle's grateful owner, Tiffany Emanuel. โ€œI know that he knows just as much as I do that every step of the way Iโ€™m going to be there helping him, caring for him, making sure he gets, you know, the help that he needs.โ€

The Emanuel family fled their home in the rural Kokomo area as a tornado hit on March 15. They returned to find two pine trees had fallen on top of their tortoise's backyard home.

A beloved pet tortoise is reunited with its family weeks after disappearing in a Mississippi tornado
Tornado Tortoise

Myrtle was missing.

Weeks later, a neighbor found the injured tortoise. He was taken to the Central Mississippi Turtle Rescue for medical treatment on April 4.

โ€œThe lady who found the tortoise called me and she said she had run into the owners,โ€ said Christy Milbourne, the organization's founder and codirector. โ€œShe said, โ€˜I think theyโ€™re going to be calling you.โ€™ So, I was excited, and then the owners did call and say, โ€˜Yeah, thatโ€™s my tortoise.โ€™โ€

Emanuel is now nursing Myrtle back to health.

โ€œIt feels good to kind of have some kind of happy out of so much sad and grief and loss,โ€ Emanuel said.

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