While Mississippi was ravaged by storms Saturday afternoon, the Golden Triangle was spared from the brunt of the damage.
The National Weather Service in Jackson is conducting damage surveys around the state today, meteorologist Daniel Lamb said, and only then will it confirm or deny tornadoes touched down in the Golden Triangle.
“Based on what we saw on radar, we are almost 100 percent confident that the damage we saw in (Oktibbeha County) was the result of tornadoes,” Lamb said. “Much of that damage was probably caused by one or multiple tornadoes.”
Witnesses reported twisters in southwest Oktibbeha County, which eventually passed west of Starkville and continued north toward Clay County and West Point. Several storm cells followed the same track throughout the afternoon hours, bringing high winds, heavy rain and hail.
Along Sun Creek Road, off Highway 389 north of Starkville, winds blew an uninhabited mobile home off its foundation and into a nearby tree line. A handful of storage units also were destroyed.
Witnesses said the tornado followed a track along Sun Creek Road, downing limbs, leaves and power lines. Trees and power lines were brought down throughout Starkville and Okitbbeha County. Portions of the county received minor flooding, Oktibbeha County Board of Supervisors President Marvell Howard said.
Nobody was injured in the county as a result of the storms, Oktibbeha County Emergency Management Coordinator Jim Britt said.
“We were extremely fortunate today,” Britt said Saturday evening. “It was a really serious situation and we were just so lucky that we didn”t have more damage than we did.”
Lowndes County also was spared from serious damage.
Dime-size hail and scattered power outages were reported in the New Hope area, Lowndes County Emergency Management Director Cindy Lawrence said. Limbs and leaves covered the roads.
Lawrence was pleased the situation wasn”t worse.
“We were very fortunate that we didn”t sustain any serious damage, unlike some parts of the state,” she said.
Dozens of homes in Choctaw County were damaged, which, as of Saturday evening, resulted in at least five deaths, two of whom were children. Four people were killed in Yazoo City during the storms and one person died in Holmes County.
Clay County Sheriff”s Department Chief Deputy Eddie Scott said the only reports they received were of downed power lines in the eastern part of the county, near Barton Ferry Road. Some limbs were scattered about due to the windy conditions.
“Other than those things, we were very fortunate,” Scott said.
Jon Turner, marketing and public relations director with 4-County Electric Power Association, said power failure problems as a result of the stormy conditions in Clay, Lowndes and Oktibbeha counties were “mild and scattered.”
Along with these three counties, 4-County also serves Choctaw County.
“System-wide, and this includes Choctaw County, we received reports of at least 5,000 outages,” he said. “As of 7 p.m., that is down to around 3,900. As for the Golden Triangle, the outages were minor and scattered. There were limbs on (power lines), but that is to be expected when there is a storm like this.”
Allen Baswell was previously a reporter for The Dispatch.
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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 36 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
