Louisville opens its doors to newly constructed storm shelter

WINSTON COUNTY,Miss. (WCBI.) – You can’t blame the people who live in Louisville,
in Smithville, in Webster and Itawamba Counties.

In Tupelo, and now in Columbus, they get a little anxious when the storm clouds roll in.

April is the anniversary month for some of Mississippi’s deadliest tornadoes.

Across north Mississippi cities and counties are using federal disaster money; money from the past, to protect their residents in the future.

The doors are open in Louisville at the brand new storm shelter.

The construction of the building cost more than $3 million, but as almost everyone in Winston County would agree, you can’t put a price on safety.

On April 28, 2014, Winston County Sheriff Jason Pugh and his family took a direct hit.

Their home was a total loss.

“The fact of having somewhere safe to be. I don’t know a lot of people in the community maybe like me and to be directly hit by a tornado, you don’t give that as much thought as you probably should. Let me say after you have been affected and your family’s been affected ,it is definitely something that you keep in the back of your mind every time the weather gets bad,” said Sheriff Pugh.

That’s why the City of Louisville built a tornado storm shelter.

Only steps from two elementary schools, more than 22 hundred people can shelter here.

“This is hopefully a step in the process to alleviate some of that to give them places to go. The county has built some at Nanih Waiya, there are some small shelters scattered around the county barn and fire department and now we have this here in the city,” said Public Safety Director Chris Young.

On days without severe weather, city and county leaders plan to host meetings, conventions, and fill the space with a few offices.

Those elementary schools will now have a place for student activities in case of bad weather.

“There’s an agreement to be used as a rental space maybe for certain types of events. That’s kind of a moving target and we’re trying to work out the details on that given the nature of its official use. It’s not open 24/7 365. We don’t have that kind of, we don’t have the kind of people to stay up here and take care of it. If we start having a watch, if a watch is issued we will be open. ”

In case the city was to lose power, there’s a backup battery to run 90 minutes to provide lights to the shelter.

Construction of the shelter has taken about a year.