The National Weather Service confirmed late Saturday that three tornadoes had ripped through central Mississippi on New Year”s Eve as part of powerful storms that caused heavy damage and injured three people.
The Mississippi Emergency Management Agency said 39 homes and 40 businesses were destroyed or seriously damaged by the storms. Emergency crews were working Saturday to survey the damage brought by swirling winds and lashing rain.
The National Weather Service in Jackson reported at least three people hurt and extensive structural damage. No one was killed.
The tornadoes passed through Hinds and Rankin counties late Friday afternoon, and Kemper and Noxubee counties early Saturday morning, the weather service reported Saturday.
The first tornado passed through Byram, near Jackson, around nightfall with winds that reached 120 mph. It damaged structures, blew out billboards, uprooted trees and overturned a tanker trailer. It then crossed the Pearl River into Richland and onto the grounds of Jackson-Evers International Airport, passing just south of the terminal. The twister also passed through Pearl.
More than eight hours later, a less-powerful twister touched down in Kemper County with maximum winds of 70 mph. It mainly snapped and uprooted trees.
The third tornado blasted through Noxubee County around 2:30 a.m. With winds that reached 140 mph, that tornado damaged farms and homes, scattering debris one mile away in one case.
About 6 inches of rain fell in places, leading to flash flooding.
Forecasters said the worst damage appeared to be in Attala County.
The storm was part of a system that ripped through the Midwest and South on New Year”s Eve, killing six people in Missouri and Arkansas.
“It looks like a rip-roaring start to the New Year,” said Ed Agre, a senior forecaster at the National Weather Service in Jackson.
He and other forecasters at the National Weather Service”s building at the Jackson airport were forced into a tornado shelter when winds hit 60 mph.
“It was pretty intense,” Agre said. “That was one of the rare times we”ve used that (shelter) in the last 20 years.”
The Clarion-Ledger newspaper in Jackson reported that the storm forced the evacuation of about 200 people from the Jackson-Evers airport. The airport was forced to run on generators and a hangar was damaged, officials said.
Power was knocked out to about 20,000 customers, but by Sunday night, only about 1,500 remained without power.
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