Christian missionaries who used to live in south Mississippi were in American Samoa when a tsunami struck this week.

Rocco and Deborah Pierce and their teenage son, Robert, are safe. They were not near the area where the massive waves crashed ashore.

Deborah Pierce sent an e-mail to several friends in McComb and Tylertown to tell them her family was fine.

She wrote that they drove into an area that “looks like a war zone,” with cars and trucks in trees. At least 119 people were killed.

Rocco Pierce is a former minister of McComb Church of Christ.