NATCHEZ — Kim Dunson used to work in a prison. She knows how bad it can get in there.

And that’s why, when she heard that her sister — Peggy Stevens — had just started a shift at the Adams County Correctional Facility when prisoner riots broke out, she headed to Hobo Forks Grocery, the closest location to the prison where she could wait. She joined a crowd of hundreds at the store across the highway from the prison.

“I already lost my other sister,” Dunson said, referring to an unrelated death. “I don’t want to lose this one.”

The family was eventually able to confirm through Stevens’ prison supervisor that she was OK, and by 10 p.m. Sunday evening Dunson was able to leave the scene with her mind set at ease.

To see more photos from Sunday’s prison riot click here.

Ashley Kirk, however, wasn’t leaving until her fiancée, Robby Moore, also left the scene. Moore is a deputy with the Adams County Sheriff’s Office, and he helped respond to the riots.

“It is kind of scary thinking that this would happen in our town, that our neighbor (has) died because of this,” Kirk said. “I was worried for (Moore’s) safety, wanting to make sure he was OK.

“I have been calling him every 15 minutes, and he is safe, and I am just waiting for him to let me know he is going to leave, and that is when I am going to leave — until then, I am right here.”

Daphne Washington, whose sister Victoria Washington is a corrections counselor, said she first heard about the riots on Twitter, and after hearing news reports that the situation was getting more and more serious, she headed to the scene, just in time to hear gunshots. Washington said she was able to confirm her sister was fine, but she remained in the area.

Watching from the road, Blake Stanley also said he heard gunshots and saw pepper gas grenades fly through the air.

“I’ve seen a lot of people go in and out,” he said, watching a pillar of smoke rising from inside the prison fence.

Stanley was there out of concern for his family, but not because he had family members inside the prison.

“I live straight down the road from here, and it came to my attention that if they break out of here my household will be in trouble,” he said. “I just came by to keep an eye on it.”

Like Stanley, Geraldine Pullins was on the scene because she had family in the area that she was worried about. Her sister-in-law’s house is down a road that had to be blocked off in the response to the riots.

“We have been calling her, but they aren’t answering the phone,” Pullins said. “We have been calling since I-don’t-know-when, but can’t anybody get (calls) in or out.”

The atmosphere around the store was a strange combination of tension and party feel, with family members frantically placing calls on their cell phones — calls couldn’t always get through because of the high volume of cellular traffic in the area — and other onlookers buying beer and food while they watched first responders and SWAT teams pull into the prison complex. As the evening stretched on, cars lined the highway and side roads.

Tracy Buckles wasn’t one of the partiers. She had spent the evening at home sending messages and calling family and friends to find out if her uncle, Donald Beach, was safe.

At one point, Beach had been able to call out and let them know he was OK, but that had been several hours before and the family hadn’t heard from him since.

That was enough to bring Buckles to Hobo Forks.

“I don’t know what has happened, if he has had his cell phone taken away,” she said.

Buckles said the community around the prison is greatly affected by what goes on there, good and bad.

“I can sit down and name several people who work here,” she said.