So Saturday night as the weather gets bad and the tornado sirens scream for almost an hour, we were worried that one of the tornadoes would hit us. It seems that it hit the kingdom hall instead! :)
February 25, 2007
Severe weather sweeps state
By Nicklaus Lovelady
A line of violent storms swept across central Mississippi on Saturday, leaving a trail of destruction in its path.
Members of the Jehovah's Witnesses Indianola Mississippi on U.S. 49 South in Sunflower County were busy Saturday night cleaning debris inside their Kingdom Hall.
Members said a tornado destroyed the carport and a storage building and damaged the roof of the main building. The damaged roof allowed rain to seep into the building, forcing members to cancel today's 10 a.m. services.
"It's pretty unfortunate that our building was hit by a tornado, but we have an emergency contingency plan for events like this," said Leslie Fields, an elder at the Kingdom Hall.
Sunflower County Emergency Management Director Mike Pruitt reported trees and power lines down in the county and many residential carports being damaged.
Around 6:30 p.m. Saturday, Entergy had reported 6,731 customers in Mississippi were without power. By 9:30 p.m. that number had jumped to 9,630, company spokeswoman Ann Becker said.
Becker said crews have been called in from north Mississippi to help assist in restoring power to customers.
"It may be until (today) before we are able to get everyone's power restored," Becker said.
Other reports in Mississippi, according to National Weather Service meteorologist Mark McAllister, include:
In the Jackson area, high winds caused a number of power outages in Flowood and Madison County.
Gail Fratkin, who lives near Dogwood Festival Market, said her home as well as the shopping center lost power for more than an hour. However, power was restored to Dogwood shortly before 8 p.m.