A double rainbow appears above the cannon at the Louisiana Overlook near Ameristar Casino after a heavy rain Friday evening.(Sam Freeman The Vicksburg Post)

[7/3/04]For the second time in six days, a thunderstorm ripped through Warren County Friday night, this time tossing up to 35 trees on houses and across roads and cutting electrical power to 4,000 Entergy customers.

“We’ve had record rainfalls, the ground is super-saturated,” said L.W. “Bump” Callaway, director of the Warren County Emergency Management, who cited the number of trees down. “We had a severe thunderstorm roll through. Trees are falling everywhere.”

The storm moved across the Mississippi River at about 6:45 p.m., and, according to the National Weather Service, dumped about 1.22 inches of rain on Warren County. It also said about two-tenths of an inch of rain had already fallen during the day.

Oak Park Subdivision and the area around it, along Indiana Avenue, Stenson Road and Old Highway 27, appeared to take the brunt of the storm. Up to 10 trees were on homes and across power lines in the dense Oak Park neighborhood.

No injuries were reported.

Entergy spokesman Cheryl Comans said at about 11 p.m. Friday that 1,882 customers remained without power and up to 4,000 had been in the dark at the height of the storm.

She said most customers were expected to have power restored by 3 p.m. today.

The weather service was predicting more storms late today and clearing on Sunday.

The heavy rainfall, on the second day of the new month, followed record precipitation in June, when more than 11 inches fell and broke a 95-year-old record for the month. About 1 1/2 inches was recorded Thursday.

Entergy told public officials in Warren County that every local crew was working at about 10 p.m. and more were on the way.

In addition to outages across Oak Park, power was out along much of Interstate 20 and frontage roads from Indiana Avenue east to U.S. 61 North and along Warriors Trail.

Trees were also reported down off Culkin Road.

Mitch Lange of the Fisher Ferry Volunteer Fire Department said clearing was slowed because power lines were tangled in trees in and around Oak Park.

“We can’t do nothing until Entergy gets here and says we can go in,” Lange said.

Looking at a large tree on a broken power pole above the “Oak Park” sign at Indiana Avenue and Blossom Lane, Linda Watts of the Culkin Volunteer Fire Department said, “It’s going to be a doozy for them to get this one down.”

Power lines were slung low over the road and in the street on Blossom Lane from Indiana Avenue to Kavanaugh Drive. Firefighters had blocked off the road. They also blocked large sections of Old Highway 27 because of trees in the road.

A flood warning was issued for the lower Big Black River at Bentonia and Bovina and the upper Big Black River at West. The weather service predicted moderate to minor flooding in those areas.

Warren County was hit by a storm Sunday, leaving half of Entergy’s Warren County customers without and damaging the roof and floor of Warren Central High School’s main gymnasium.

The Vicksburg Warren School District approved emergency funding to repair the roof and replace the floor.