Ashley Dunlap woke around 4:45 a.m. Sunday to the sound of a crash coming from her daughter’s bedroom.
“She was terrified,” Dunlap said. “She came running into my room saying it was raining in her bedroom. I ran in there, and it was just coming through the roof.”
A tree from a neighbor’s yard had collapsed onto their apartment at New Hope Garden, a complex on Old Yorkville Road. Dunlap and her daughter quickly gathered whatever they could save from the rain and left home.
Dunlap’s was one of several homes in the New Hope area damaged by Sunday morning’s storms, as powerful winds swept through the Golden Triangle.
New Hope saw the worst of it, said Lowndes County Emergency Management Agency Director Cindy Lawrence, with downed trees on homes and broken utility poles knocking out power.
Luckily, no injuries were reported.
Lawrence said she received between 50 and 60 reports of fallen trees Sunday morning throughout Columbus and the county, with about four of them crashing through New Hope homes.
One of those homes belonged to Taylor McCown on Livingston Lane. The entire front section of her house, including the living room, dining room and her son’s bedroom, collapsed when a tree crashed through.
“You run into your living room like you always do, and now there’s a tree in the middle of it,” McCown said. “It was definitely terrifying.”
Jon Turner, director for public relations and marketing for 4-County Electric Power Association, said hundreds of New Hope residents were without power from about 4:30 a.m. Sunday into the late hours of the evening, with some residents out for upwards of 16 hours.
“The New Hope area took the longest,” Turner said. “There’s a lot of damage, a lot of trees down, a lot of standing water, which all makes it hard to get to stuff.”
At the storm’s peak, approximately 6,161 meters were without power in Lowndes County, along with 746 in Oktibbeha County, 311 in Clay County and fewer than 30 in surrounding counties. All power was restored by about 8 p.m. Sunday, Turner said.
In Columbus, only one home was struck by a fallen tree on Fifth Avenue.
Angela Verdell, general manager for Columbus Light and Water, said the city reported 212 outages caused by downed trees and utility poles across the north side, east Columbus and the Highway 69 area. Some residents in these areas remained without power until 7 p.m.
Starkville and Oktibbeha County
In Starkville, about 32 households lost power, mostly due to fallen limbs and lightning, said Tiara Cole, operations coordinator for Starkville Utilities. Most outages lasted between 30 minutes and an hour.
Oktibbeha County EMA Director Kristen Campanella gave the “all clear” Sunday afternoon, reporting only minor road obstructions caused by downed trees. All debris was cleared by Sunday afternoon.
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You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 33 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
