A family of four was out to dinner when a tornado destroyed their mobile home on Gaulden-Clinton Road at 6:37 p.m. Sunday, Wilkinson County Emergency Management officials said.

“No one was home at the time of the incident,” said Mattie L. Powell, Wilkinson County Emergency Management director. “They had actually gone out to dinner, and no one was at home at the time of the incident, thank God. It tore it up.”

Powell said the Lollis family, a husband, wife and two children, lost everything in what the National Weather Service New Orleans/Baton Rouge office confirmed as a tornado touchdown.

“Law enforcement reported a tornado touchdown at 6:37 p.m. and they reported some tree damage and mobile home damage in Centreville,” said Freddie Zeigler, an NWS meteorologist for New Orleans/Baton Rouge. “We do have a survey team that is out right now that is going to assess how long the track and how wide the tornado was and also the strength of the tornado.”

Zeigler said radar indicated possible circulation and touchdown in that area at the time of the incident, and he anticipates the team, based out of Slidell, Louisiana, would have more information from the assessment later Monday afternoon.

Powell said she also received reports Monday morning of trees down and a house with damage on Pinckneyville Road in Woodville.

“It took off some tin and part of a porch on (a woman’s) house,” Powell said.

Zeigler said Wilkinson County residents reported the damage to the NWS between 5 p.m. and 5:11 p.m. Sunday.

“Around 5 o’clock there was a funnel cloud near Woodville,” Zeigler said, “and this was received from the public as a possible funnel cloud and lowering clouds. We also had reports about 5:10 of hail, 1 inch, and that was reported in Woodville. At 5:11 we also had a report of wind damage. Multiple trees down. That was near Pinckneyville and that was in Wilkinson County, 15 miles west of Woodville.”

Zeigler said the team would assess the damage in Woodville as well, but as of Monday morning the damage on Pinckneyville Road was not being labeled a tornado.

Scott Hawkins, The Natchez Democrat