Tornado and Flooding Impacts on Columbus Parks

COLUMBUS, Miss. (WCBI) – The city of Columbus has 8 parks and three community centers.

Only one park suffered tornado damage, while two others felt flood impacts.

Sims Scott Park Community Center looks like a total loss and the park took heavy damage as well.

The recent Columbus tornado ripped the heartbeat of this community to pieces.

“This park is very significant to the community. There’s a lot of rich history in this park. A lot of firsts happened in this park. As a matter of fact, I played baseball in this park, so I mean, it’s like this park means a lot to the community and once we make sure that our citizens are safe and make sure that they’re taken care of, we’re going to do everything we can to try and put it back together again,” says Columbus Parks and Rec Director, Greg Lewis.

Memories of what used to be linger. Lewis sees a completely different view today, than he did over twenty years ago, when he landed his first job out here.

“There’s a lot of sentimental value that goes into this park because you’ve worked here and you’ve helped put things together and each person that works here has that sentimental value. Then, you’ve got the seniors that have been here for years and years and years and a lot of their things, their quilts and things, were destroyed and that’s why I was over there trying to see if I could recover some of the stuff from their quilting and things like that, but there’s really not anything left,” said Lewis

What’s usually a thriving place, now looks more like a ghost town.

Lewis says damage estimates are around a million dollars.

“Pretty much everything got damage, except for that one single bench over there, the Joe Edwards bench, it’s probably the only thing that’s not damaged. Even though the building is still standing, the substation, it received damage, as well.”

Although Sims Scott is the only park with tornado scars, floodwaters left their mark at the Riverwalk and Propst Park.

“The waters got up. We received floods, but it didn’t get into any of the buildings, but it did get as high as three or four feet on the playground, so I mean, it looked like everything was covered, but after the water subsided, we did go down and as of right now, we have not found any damage.”

Lewis says once initial recovery steps and assessments are done, rebuilding can start.

“We’ve been looking at damage and like I said, because of other agencies in town and we have to give them buildings, the school has been very helpful and beneficial. I have a meeting with them today and they’re going to try and see and come up with ways to kind of house these programs, until we can get back on our feet again. So like I said, the Columbus Municipal School District is doing a great job and trying to work with us.”