Tornado Damage North Of Town

Mary Clark of Jackson stands on top of what is left of her lake home at 207 Sea Island Drive Saturday afternoon.  Clark was in Jackson when the storm hit and rushed to Eagle Lake. The Vicksburg Post

Brian Strickland of Madison, sifts through debris when his extended family's lake home stood on Sea Island Drive at Eagle Lake.  The property is owned by Johnny Nosser of Vicksburg.  The Vicksburg Post

You may have already heard on the news about the devastating tornados that ripped through my state of Mississippi that killed 10 people including three children.  Thirty minutes from home, in the Eagle Lake community north of Vicksburg, two people were injured, 11 homes were destroyed and about 20 others were damaged Saturday when a violent tornado crossed the Mississippi River and slammed a residential neighborhood at Eagle Lake before heading to Yazoo City.

“It’s horrific,” Warren County Sheriff Martin Pace said. “It’s complete devastation.”

Damage in the county was concentrated along a mile-wide stretch of Sea Island Drive, which runs parallel to Eagle Lake, an oxbow about 30 miles north of Vicksburg.

Mississippi Emergency Management Agency said late Saturday night that 30 homes at Eagle Lake received damage in the storm.

About half of the homes are occupied by full-time residents, and others are weekend lodges. Pace also said barns and outbuildings along Mississippi 465, the state highway that connects the lake area to U.S. 61 North were damaged.
 
In Vicksburg we had mostly high winds and a few rain drops.  We were very fortunate that it did not hit downtown Vicksburg like it did back in December 1953 when 38 people including children were killed.  I was 12 years old when it hit and I will never forget the terrible loud sound it made...like a freight train.  For 21 years we lived only 9 blocks from town.  My mother was downtown working at the time and was very fortunate that she was not killed.  You can click here and read all about the tornado that hit Vicksburg in 1953.