Roy and Doris Sagely were in their mobile home near the corner of Highway 389 and Sun Creek Road Saturday afternoon when they heard what sounded like a tornado approaching from the southwest.
But the storm didn”t pack the sound of a freight train, as many tornado survivors describe it. All the Sagelys could hear were high winds, heavy rain and the clamor of debris hitting the side of their trailer.
The couple of 36 years hunkered down and waited for the storm to pass, but listened as the roof of their well house was blown off, a storage shed was destroyed and the mobile home on a family member”s property about 100 yards across the field was flipped off its foundation and crashed into a row of trees. The trailer was for rent and uninhabited at the time.
Mike Edmonston, senior meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Jackson, this morning said the agency still hadn”t confirmed whether it was a tornado that tore through the Sagelys” property and continued northeast into Clay County, but believes it could have been the same cell which produced a tornado and destroyed homes in Yazoo City and Choctaw County. A twister was reported by a pilot northeast of West Point, as well, Edmonston said, but it is unclear if it was the same tornado.
“It looks like Clay and Oktibbeha are all in the line of that particular (tornado) that went through Yazoo City, but we haven”t had an aerial survey to link it all together yet,” Edmonston said of the storm that began in Louisiana and continued across Mississippi into Alabama. “If it was, it would be close to 180 miles long.”
Surveyors were on their way to Oktibbeha and Clay counties this morning, Edmonston said.
As the Sagelys stood in the maze of roofing and debris in their back yard Sunday, they recalled the ordeal vividly, although they didn”t see the suspected tornado that damaged their property.
“The wind just started blowing and it was raining, but it was no worse to me than when the hurricane came through,” Doris Sagely said in reference to Hurricane Katrina. “It was just high winds and stuff. I heard stuff hitting the back of the trailer, so I was going to see what it was because I thought it was hail, and then I got about halfway and decided that it wasn”t hail. That was stuff hitting the trailer.”
The skies were blue and the sun was shining Sunday, but remnants of the storm remained. A path of downed trees appeared along Sun Creek Road. More trees were uprooted along Highway 389. Debris was stuck in fences and trees.
“My family has lived here my whole life and this is the first time that I remember that we”ve had damage like this,” Doris Sagely said.
The Sagelys said they aren”t sure yet what to do about the damage on their property.
“We”re going to wait on the insurance (company) and see what they”re going to do,” Roy Sagely said.
The suspected tornado hit Oktibbeha County just after 2 p.m. Five people died in Choctaw County during the storms, though no injuries were reported in the Golden Triangle.
“We were lucky,” Doris Sagely said.
Roy Sagely admits he was nervous during the storms, but Doris says she wasn”t.
“I was just in the Lord”s hands,” she said. “People ask me, ”Why didn”t you get out?” Well, I”m not running. If it”s my time to go, it”s my time to go.”
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