A line of thunderstorms knocked down trees and knocked offline a portion of Oktibbeha County’s power grid Saturday afternoon, leaving an estimated 3,000 people without electricity for a few hours.
No injuries or significant damage was reported, but downed lines in Starkville left about 2,000 people in the dark Saturday, Starkville Electric Department General Manager Terry Kemp said. Almost 1,000 4-County Electric Power Association customers in Sturgis were also affected.
Looking at Mississippi as a whole, Saturday’s high winds and heavy rains led to no injuries.
“Thankfully, in all of this, there are no injuries reported anywhere,” said Greg Flynn of Mississippi’s Emergency Management Agency.
Tornado and flood watches and warnings were issued throughout much of Saturday in the state and in Louisiana. There were at least two confirmed tornadoes reported by the National Weather Service in Mississippi.
Flynn said his agency received reports of several homes severely damaged in Jasper County, along with homes damaged in Lauderdale and Covington counties. There also were scattered reports of power outages around Mississippi and Louisiana.
Emergency sirens sounded shortly after 4 p.m. Saturday in Oktibbeha County, although a tornado is not believed to have touched down in the county. The damage was attributed to straight-line winds.
Emergency crews went to work quickly throughout the county, clearing debris from roads and removing downed power lines and transmission poles.
Kemp said SED workers re-established power connections to customers by 9 p.m. that same night.
“By about 9:30 p.m., we were down to a minimal number of calls,” he said. “Our guys got out there quickly, assessed the problems and got most back up within a couple of hours. Apparently lightning hit one of our structures, and we had a pole leaning on Louisville Street; however, most of the problems were from the wind knocking down tree limbs.”
Saturday’s line of thunderstorms did not produce as much damage as a microburst of wind on October. Then, damaging winds and falling limbs knocked out power for more than half of SED’s customer base.
Tornado and flood watches and warnings were issued throughout much of Saturday, and the National Weather Service confirmed two tornado touchdowns that day.
Lowndes County Emergency Management Director Cindy Lawrence reported no substantial damage from the weekend storm.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Carl Smith covers Starkville and Oktibbeha County for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter @StarkDispatch
You can help your community
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 41 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.