Tornado Damaged Homes in Columbus and What’s To Come

COLUMBUS, Miss. (WCBI) – Lowndes County is one of many across the state still waiting on federal disaster assistance.

Floods, tornadoes, and severe storms have caused havoc over half of the state.

Here in Columbus, homes and businesses are still in disrepair.

Right now, the city is playing the waiting game when it comes to federal funding and that waiting game is leaving many storm victims wondering where they’ll stay at night, or even if they’ll have a roof over their head.

Over 300 homes were either damaged or demolished in Columbus, which leaves the people who lived in those homes wondering what’s next?

This area where the February 23rd tornado ripped through doesn’t look much different now, than it did over two weeks ago.

Damaged homes still sit on every corner and rubble from demolished ones is still scattered everywhere.

Lowndes County E.M.A. Director Cindy Lawrence says many uprooted residents are staying with family members, friends, in hotels, but others are living inside their tornado hit homes.

Homes that don’t even have electricity.

“We still have those citizens or residents who want to stay in their home, who don’t really have anywhere else to go, or don’t have the funding capabilities of staying in a hotel, so I’m still seeing a lot of people who may be homeless right now, that are living in some of the houses that have been damaged during the tornado’s path.”

Community Outreach Director Glenda Buckhalter says the city has been working closely with organizations, including local housing agencies.

“We’re going to try to formulate a plan to help as many as we can. The ones that didn’t have insurance that were renters and perhaps, the landlords have decided not to repair those homes, then we want to get them out of those damaged homes and into permanent housing.”

Lawrence has worked over ten disasters since 2001, including the 2002 tornado that hit Columbus.

She’s feeling a sense of deja-vu.

“In the 2002 tornado, I saw people maybe six months out, before they actually got assistance for temporary housing or for assistance with some of the other necessary needs they needed. Of course, we always come out and do the immediate needs.”

She says the 2019 tornado damaged an area filled with a lot of renters.

“If we can get some assistance in from FEMA, or maybe some of the volunteer agencies that are working with us to try to get a lot of displaced people into permanent, temporary housing, then within six months, we may still have some people that are not in homes, but our plan is to try and work with some of our volunteer agencies in Lowndes County, who can assist with temporary housing.”

“We’re going to try our best that six months from now, that the people, if they were not homeless prior to this, that they won’t be homeless six months from now. The one thing I have realized during this transition, is that we truly are ‘One Columbus.’ You have people offering up properties for less than they would have paid from the beginning and so we know that we will recover and we’re all going to do it together,” says Buckhalter.

Lawrence says it’s upon renters whose homes were damaged to come and request assistance for temporary housing.