Another severe thunderstorm swept through Lowndes County on Sunday night, toppling trees, snapping utility poles and leaving hundreds without power well into Monday afternoon.
Jon Turner, director of public relations and marketing for 4-County Electric Power Association, said about 500 customers in Lowndes County, and roughly 300 more scattered throughout Oktibbeha and other nearby counties, were without power for more than 12 hours.
“At the risk of leaving some people off all night, which we hate to do, but … just knowing that we might be at it again all day (Monday), we decided safety and prudence dictated bringing those guys in about midnight and then they were back out at first light,” Turner said. “… We had, probably, a good 1,000 folks overnight that were without power scattered across the territory.”
Turner said outage reports began around 6 p.m. Sunday. At the peak of the storm, about 4,200 meters were without power across 4-County’s service territory – which includes nine counties. Of those, 1,699 were in Lowndes County and about 971 were in Oktibbeha County.
All power was restored by late Monday afternoon, though Turner said his team was already preparing for more outages with additional storms expected Monday night.
“We hope that whatever else comes through is moderate,” Turner said.
Angela Verdell, general manager for Columbus Light and Water, said about 1,400 outages occurred in the city, caused by lightning, downed trees and broken utility poles. Verdell said all power was restored by 9 a.m. Monday.
Lowndes County Emergency Management Agency Director Cindy Lawrence said 10 trees fell during the storm, damaging power lines and blocking roads. Only one home, located on Cypress Street in east Columbus, suffered significant damage, and no injuries were reported.
In Oktibbeha County, four trees fell into roadways, said EMA Director Kristen Campanella. All roads were quickly cleared, and no damage to homes was reported.
Rainfall totals for Sunday have not yet been reported, but the storm adds to what has already been the wettest May since 2017, when the National Weather Service reported 4.92 inches for the month.
Before Sunday, the Columbus area has seen about 4.07 inches of rain, surpassing the May average of 4.02 inches.
Year-to-date, Columbus has received about 18.82 inches of precipitation, which falls about 6.64 inches short of the average of 25.46 inches, according to NWS.
Though Sunday’s damage was minor compared to other recent storms, Turner said the frequency of storms in the region has been unusual.
“The thing that we’ve been talking about here of late is … it does not usually happen like this,” Turner said. “We’ve had major events for weeks and several at a time where for whatever reason, our service territory seems to be bearing the brunt of it. The storms are fairly normal, and when they pass through here, they’ve kind of chinned up to (being) damaging, and then they go on.”
Since April 1, at least five severe storms have hit the Golden Triangle, each bringing damage to homes and widespread power outages.
“Since I’ve been here, I’ve never seen a string of storms just keep coming like this,” Turner said.
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