Just after dawn Monday morning, Bobby McKnight sipped at a cup of hot coffee as he surveyed the damage to his property on Attala Road 2120 in McCool with family members.
He and his wife had weathered the storm in a closet. They and their dogs were safe, and although much of thier land and outbuildings suffered, their residence had little more than roof damage — and they were grateful.
“Me and my wife were here and we were prepared for it. We put some chairs in a closet,” he said. “It sounded like an airplane or a train coming over the house. It was an awful noise, but I bet it didn’t last even a minute ... but it seemed longer.”
Outbuildings on the property were crushed under the weight of old trees felled by the storm, and the front wall of the carport collapsed, causing its roof to crash down to be held up by their SUV.
“The worse thing is the trees, and we don’t have power or water,” he said, pointing at all the felled trees behind the home and wedged into the roofs of outbuildings, “but we’ve got a lot of friends coming to help us do something. It could be so much worse — we could have nothing but a slab left here.”
According to County Emergency Manager Danny Townsend, there are an estimated 15 homes with damage, the worst being to the home of Jim Leach on Hwy 12, where the porch, roof and livingroom of the residence were affected. He said most of the rest had minor structural damage, trees down and roof damage.
Other major property damage reported following the storm included a barn behind the home of Gerald (Jojo) Jones on Hwy. 429, and at Allen Rutherford’s property on Shiloh Road, trees were downed on outbuildings, a boat and part of the house.
Townsend said the apparent tornado started in the southern portion of the county, lifted up over Kosciusko and touched back down along Hwy. 12 just past the Ethel hilltop and ran up to the McCool county line.
“There isn’t anything official yet, but from what I’ve seen, its apparent it was a tornado,” Townsend told The Star-Herald Monday. He said a crew from the weather service will likely visit in the next couple of days to conduct an evaluation, verify the tornado and determine its strength.
Area residents were warned by sirens, according to Townsend. It was just last year when it was discovered that the Ethel siren didn’t work at all due to an electrical problem and the McCool siren would start but fail within 30-45 seconds. Fortunately for residents, both had been fixed by the time this tornado passed through the area Sunday night.
Charles Fancher, the District 2 county supervisor just days away from retirement, said his crew worked from 5:30 to 10 p.m. Sunday night removing trees and debris from a number of county roads to allow for safe passage. They were joined by crews from Districts 3 and 5 and they worked on county roads 2101, 2102, 2111, 2120, 2122 and 2130.
“I really want to thank Beat 5 and Beat 3 for coming out here and helping us last night,” said Fancher, who noted that most felled trees were on north-to-south running roads since the storm moved across them.
An emergency declaration was signed for the area Monday, allowing county personnel to go onto private property to do necessary work.
Although Entergy personnel could be seen working to restore power in the area first thing Monday morning, officials say it will more than likely be three to four days before everyone has power back in the area.
Although roadways are cleared, Townsend said county, state and power officials are asking people to avoid the area as much as possible to allow for crews to continue cleanup and work to restore power.
The Attala County Sheriff’s Department and Mississippi Highway Patrol are monitoring the area heavily, particularly as long as power remains out.
See our storm damage slideshow on the homepage of our website at www.starherald.net
