RANKIN COUNTY, Miss. (WJTV) – Recovery and restoration efforts are underway in parts of Rankin County after a tornado caused damage.
Tree services and Entergy Mississippi crews were out Monday morning, working to clear the damage and restore power to customers. The tornado uprooted trees and snapped many in half, taking down power lines.
Former Pelahatchie Mayor Knox Ross said his family sheltered inside their home as the tornado came through.
“We were just sitting there in the den watching it all of a sudden, and we could hear it. I mean, if you’ve ever been through a tornado, you can hear it. And so, we dove in the hallway, and it passed about 30 seconds. We didn’t, you know, heard a little debris hit the house. No big deal. Came outside, saw that our structures were okay,” he said.
More than 500 people in Rankin County were without power Monday morning, according to the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency (MEMA).
MEMA officials said there are reports of homes damaged, trees down and power outages due to Sunday’s storms. Initial damage assessments are underway, and 11 counties are currently reporting damage. The counties reporting damage are:
- Carroll
- Hinds
- Jasper
- Jefferson Davis
- Leake
- Madison
- Monroe
- Noxubee
- Rankin
- Smith
- Winston
MEMA encourages residents who sustained damage to their homes to report it to their counties and MEMA using MEMA’s self-report tool.
With the temperatures expected to reach below freezing this week, many are anxious to get their power restored. Sunday’s tornado has not been assigned a confirmed category level.