Lowndes County emergency services assess storm damage
LOWNDES COUNTY, Miss. (WCBI) – Debris is still left over in Lowndes County following Sunday morning’s severe weather.
High winds and heavy rain caused multiple trees to fall onto houses and into homes early Sunday morning in Lowndes County.
Residents are now left to pick up the pieces.
A tree crashed into Yarshika Hogan’s home around 5 am on Sunday, May 18.
“The kitchen area was the most damaged, and when the trees fell, it hit everything, knocked the walls down in the bathroom,” said Hogan.
She said the sound woke her immediately.
“I heard this big, big, loud boom noise that I’ve never heard in my life before. I have a three-year-old, so I jumped up instantly and went looking for him,” said Hogan.
Now, she and her children are temporarily displaced.
County emergency services received numerous reports about fallen trees and down powerlines after the storm.
“We’ve been out all morning and most of yesterday picking up debris and clearing the road, making sure the roads are clear. Then we start on the yards. But we’re picking up. What we normally pick up. Limbs and small debris,” said Tyrone Cunningham, the Lowndes County Road Manager.
Cunningham said there are limits to what they can pick up.
“If it’s a little bit larger than it normally is, we’ll bend the rules some, so, we can help out the residents if they live here, but we’re just not equipped to pick up the larger stuff. We don’t have that type of equipment,” said Cunningham.
The National Weather Service came Monday to survey the damage.
“We came up to assess the damage to make sure it wasn’t a tornado, to see what was actually happening. So, we came out, did our assessment, and it seems like it was straight line winds, winds of 50 up to 60 miles per hour that came through the New Hope area,” said Michael Hill, a Warning Coordination Meteorologist for the National Weather Service.
They said last week’s heavy rain caused the trees to become saturated making them more likely to fall.
The Lowndes County Road Department will continue picking up debris for the next two weeks.
The Road Department will not pick up pieces left by contractors.
Call 911 if a tree has fallen on your house or into your home.
If you have any debris that needs to be picked up, you can call the county road manager at (662) 251-8105.
