As the East Coast of the United States was digging itself out of a blizzard on Sunday, a monster tornado ripped through the town of Hattiesburg, Mississippi, destroying hundreds of homes and injuring at least 12.

"Jeff Rent of the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency said there were no immediate reports of deaths despite the widespread visible damage," reports USA Today's William M. Welch, and The Los Angeles Times's Marisa Gerber reports that the "University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg posted a statement on its website Sunday declaring a state of emergency, confirming damage to at least four campus buildings and asking students not to return to campus until further notice."

That textual description doesn't quite do the monster twister justice. According to Accuweather,  the beast of a storm was "at least several football fields wide." And here's what that looks like:

And one more from a different angle:

And one more angle (not that there's some NSFW language):

And here's a picture of some of the damage that the cyclone brought: 

Scariest thing I have ever lived thru. twitter.com/brentjones4/st…

— Brent Jones (@brentjones4) February 10, 2013

Officials this morning are going door-to-door looking for survivors and the rescue operation in Hattiesburg is still ongoing, but thankfully no deaths have been reported at this time. 

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Alexander Abad-Santos