Despite howling winds, heavy rainfall and frequent lightning battering Lowndes County and the Friendly City Sunday night, no serious injuries were reported, according to city and county emergency personnel.
But while police and members of the Lowndes County Emergency Management Agency said much of the storm”s fury resulted in downed trees, a few county homeowners and business owners reported structures damaged near Caledonia.
“Most of the reports came out of the north part of the county,” said Lowndes County Sheriff”s Office Chief Deputy Greg Wright. “We had numerous trees down on many roads, like Wolfe and North Wolfe, Buck Egger Road, Old West Point Road and several others. But it seemed like the Caledonia area had more than anywhere else.”
At least two houses near Caledonia were reported damaged due to downed trees, Wright explained. However, none of the damage resulted in serious injuries, he added.
“I”m looking through the reports right now, and I don”t see any reports of serious injuries or people hospitalized because of the storm,” Wright said. “There were a few trees down on some roads, and I think there was a minor traffic accident near Caledonia because of that.
“There may have been some minor injuries because of that, but again, it was nothing serious,” Wright added. “It was definitely a pretty significant wind event.”
At least a “few hundred” people in the city and county were without power this morning, according to officials with the Columbus Light and Water Department and the 4-County Electric Power Association.
“I know we had at leasat four broken power poles from the storm last night,” Todd Gale, CL&W General Manager, said this morning. “Most of our power outages were up around the Fox Run neighborhood in the north part of the city off Highway 45.
“Rough estimate, I”d say we have at least 200 or 300 customers without power up there right now,” Gale added. “We had guys working on it late last night and they”re out there again this morning. The work is going well, and we hope to get the power back on today.”
As many as 5,500 customers Sunday night were without power in the 4-County coverage area, which includes Clay, Lowndes, Oktibbeha, Noxubee, Monroe, Choctaw, Webster and Chickasaw counties, said John Turner, 4-County director of public relations and marketing.
“We had about 5,500 people out in our system last night during the worst of it,” Turner said this morning. “Right now, I”d say there are about 30 or so people still without power in our entire eight-county coverage area.
“The outages weren”t centralized to one specific area. They were pretty spread out all over the place because of the constant high winds,” Turner added.
Although Lowndes County was under a lake wind advisory for several hours Sunday night, wind speeds never reached tornado-like levels, according to Lowndes County EMA Assistant Director Demetrious Council.
“The reports that came in said the gusts varied between about 30 and 40 miles per hour. It doesn”t look like they got much above that,” Council said, adding the EMA activates the county”s tornado sirens if wind gusts reach 70 mph, even if no tornado has been reported.
“From what I see, there are no reports of flooding or anything like that from the storm,” Council added.
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