Storm cleanup continues
Published 5:00 am Tuesday, May 5, 2009
With electricity restored in most areas and debris cleanupefforts in full swing, Lincoln County and its neighboring countiesare beginning to recover from a swath of damage left by Sundaymorning’s thunderstorms.
Entergy Customer Accounts Manager Kenny Goza reported 400customers still without power as of 7 a.m. Tuesday, but he expectedall electricity to be restored by day’s end. Approximately 7,000Entergy customers were in the dark Sunday after the storm passed,he said.
“We’re hoping – and I don’t see any reason why not – that we’llwrap up today,” Goza said.
Around 250 Southwest Mississippi Electric Power Associationmembers in Lincoln County were without power as of 7 a.m., saidpublic relations director Azalea Knight.
She said her company is showing 3,300 outages system-wide, withmost of those in Adams County. At the peak of the storm, 12,000SMEPA customers were without power.
Knight said most of Lincoln County’s outages should be restoredby Tuesday evening.
“There’s a possibility there might be some isolated cases thatare not completed by this afternoon, but optimistic about most ofLincoln County by late evening,” she said.
Meanwhile, no outages remained on Magnolia Electric PowerAssociation’s grid. Member services director Lucy Shell said all ofthe company’s 7,500 peak outages – most of which were in southernLincoln County – were repaired by 10 p.m. Monday.
“It’s zero outages for the entire system,” she said.
Included in Entergy’s list of customers enjoying restored powerare the students and teachers of Bogue Chitto Attendance Center,which held class Monday with no electricity. Lincoln County SchoolDistrict Superintendent Terry Brister said electricity was restoredat the school around 7:30 p.m. Monday.
“We were given different time intervals for (the power) to comeon, and that’s what we based our day on,” he said. “Entergy dideverything they could to get those lights on all day long.”
Brister said Bogue Chitto’s students did not just sit around inthe dark Monday, but engaged in special projects related to theirareas of study.
“Basically, they went to school,” he said. “I commend theadministration and faculty at Bogue Chitto for making a day thatwas filled with uncertainty on the time when the lights might comeon.”
With electricity restored at Bogue Chitto, all four countyschools are back to normal, Brister said. He said no damage wassustained in the district, and Bogue Chitto’s power outage was theonly way Sunday’s storm affected the school system.
In the city, Lipsey School also experienced a power outage, butBrookhaven School District Superintendent Lea Barrett said thelights were back on by 9 a.m. Monday. No other outages and nodamage were sustained in the city school system, she said.
While county and city schools are running normally and powercrews continue to restore power around Lincoln County, the effortto clean up debris and assess storm damage is winding down.
Lincoln County Civil Defense Director Clifford Galey said mostcounty and city roads were passable Tuesday morning, though downedtrees are still being cut up and removed.
“I’m sure there’s still a lot of debris out there and people arebringing it to the street, so that’s going to make it realhazardous,” he said. “People need to be real careful.”
Galey said Red Cross officials are assisting him with damageassessment, which should be completed Tuesday.
Galey reported nine homes, two apartments and one mobile homewith major damage throughout the city and county; and 15 homes, oneapartment and one mobile home with minor damage. He said onebusiness in the city suffered major damage, and a barn at MeadeMathis’ farm was destroyed.
“Compared to (hurricanes) Katrina and Gustav, it was a minorevent,” Galey said of Sunday’s storm. “But I don’t want to by anymeans minimize what happened. It was pretty serious because of thehome damage we have, and some of those folks are really in abind.”
Unfortunately, Galey said there could be more severe weather instore for Southwest Mississippi. He said the possibility for morethunderstorms exists for Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, andeven more weather could pass through by the weekend.
“We’re just going to have to be as prepared as we can and takeit as it comes,” Galey said.
More bad weather is more bad news for Franklin County, wheresome officials are saying Sunday’s damage is worse than that ofHurricane Katrina’s.
“One of the aldermen said, ‘I thought (Katrina) had come throughagain,'” said Franklin County Civil Defense Director Mark Thornton.”Even back during Katrina, we didn’t have as many homes damagedwith trees falling on them.”
Thornton said 18 homes around the county and 10 businessesaround Meadville were reported damaged, with four to five of thosesustaining major damage and at least one destroyed.
Half of the roads in Franklin County were blocked by fallentrees Sunday night, Thornton said, but most of those roads are nowopen. Power has been restored to most of the county, he said,including Meadville Convalescent Home – which operated on emergencygenerators Monday.
“Everything is about back to normal,” Thornton said. “Everybodyis just cleaning up their yards, trying to patch up and moveon.”
Damage was much less in Lawrence County, where local EmergencyManagement Agency Director and Monticello Volunteer Fire DepartmentChief Robert Patterson said a mobile home with a roof blown off wasthe major incident.
“We have a couple (of houses) with trees on them, but they’renot hurt real bad,” he said. “Most of the power is on, all theroads are open. We just have to go clean up now.”
Copiah County Civil Defense Director Randle Drane said nostructural damage has been reported to his office. Downed trees andpower outages were the extent of the damage, he said.
“We were kind of lucky,” Drane said. “All we had were a bunch oftrees down… that all was taken care of Sunday. We’re just waitingon power companies now to complete their tasks.”