Storm Aftermath!

This shows the exit from the Vicksburg floodwall on the waterfront which has been barred up and more beams will be added as it begins to rise. This is called the Yazoo Diversion Canal which empties into the Mississippi River. It looked like it was leaking through the beams this afternoon.

You can see this all over town, Entergy crews and tree surgeons trying to get things cleaned up and restored.

This down tree was at the Mississippi overlook where I took a picture of the playground park below.

The Mississippi River is very close to the playground near Blackjack Casino. Notice how close it is to the hotel on the far right.

As we drove up Mulvihill Street this afternoon a tree was blocking half of the street and lines were pulled down. This is three blocks from our house. You see a lot of this around town.

The National Weather Service (NWS) in Jackson said winds in Vicksburg reached 80 mph at the height of the storms this past Friday. That contrasts with 75 mph winds reported in the city on August 29, 2005, the day Hurricane Katrina devastated the Mississippi Gulf Coast and much of south Louisiana. Representatives of the NWS were expected in the area in an attempt to determine if the storms were tornadoes or straight line winds. The storms had "done $150,000 to $200,000 in damage" at Warren Central High School off Mississippi 27. Entergy Vicksburg spokesman said 12,000 electricity customers were without power at the height of the storm and 10,000 remained without electricity. He said outages could last 48 hours. (My brother's electricity finally came on this morning, my step-son and his family are still running on a generator and our cable TV is down). Several trees have smashed through homes. River Region Medical Center was without power for three hours but the hospital operated on a generators. Our Sheriff Martin Pace said that in his 29 years he had never seen so much wide spread damage that was not hurricane related. When Bob and I drove around this afternoon we saw a lot of down trees, trees on vehicles, power lines on the ground, power poles snapped in half, trees on top of houses and some roads were impassable. Through all of this no one was seriously injured. Not only are we dealing with cleaning up after this storm but we have flooding north and south of town. This is not a sweetthing!