Twenty three counties across Mississippi are reporting damage from the severe weather that began Friday night and pummeled the state through Saturday.
During a Sunday press conference, Stephen McRaney, Director of the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency, or MEMA, said a deadly tornado that struck Walthall County tracked for 70 miles, leaving major damage in its path.
“Major telephone poles gone, everything else,” McRaney said. “You're talking 25 to 35 feet up, pine trees were snapped. We're not talking about twisted. We're not talking about rolled over. Snapped. Almost like a big giant brought in the hedgers and just cut it off and laid them down.”
MEMA is coordinating the multi-agency response to the storms. That includes things like the transportation department removing debris from roads and the health department supporting hospitals treating the dozens of people injured.
Gov. Tate Reeves announced that all who had been reported missing on Saturday had been located as of Sunday afternoon, and that the number of power outages had been reduced from a high of 36,000 to under 8,000. Reeves says he’s encouraged by the number of volunteers working with local emergency managers.
“Mississippians in times like these step up and do what is necessary to take care of our friends and our neighbors, and that makes me proud to be a Mississippian,” Reeves said.
Though the storms are over, they're not done causing damage, according to McRaney. Between 8 to 10 inches of rain fell in a short period, causing major flooding in Prentiss and Tishomingo counties. McRaney says that water is slow-moving, but headed elsewhere.
“We're going to get floodwaters that are going to move down through the state and are going to impact the rest of the state for probably the next week and a half to two weeks,” McRaney said.
As of Sunday evening, the storms had claimed the lives of six Mississippians, injured 27 and displaced 217, according to MEMA.
