Mother Nature has had a hand in the newest mural planned for City Front.

After artists used a classroom-style projector and &#8220permanent” markers Thursday night to trace the scene representing the tornado that struck Vicksburg in 1953, a gully-washer of rain barreled through and washed it all away.

So tonight, Benny Graeff, Brett Chigoy and Chase Innes, employees of Robert Dafford Murals, are headed back to Depot Street to retrace their steps and the image.

The mural will be the 17th of the Daffords lining the flood wall at City Front. This one – like all the others, on a 20-by-12-foot section of the wall – is sponsored by Pat and Barbara Cashman and their children, Amanda and John.

On Thursday night, the three artists spent about an hour tracing the sketch that would be the outline for the actual mural.

&#8220It’s pretty much just a map,” Chigoy said. &#8220You don’t need to go into super detail.”

Dafford and his employee artists have done similar mural work in other towns along the Mississippi and Ohio rivers.

The newest mural is &#8220an amalgamation of several images” representing the tornado that devastated downtown Vicksburg, said Pat Cashman, publisher of The Vicksburg Post, a Cashman family business since 1883.

At the center of the mural is a paperboy on a bicycle carrying a bag with copies of The Sunday Post-Herald, the name under which the company won a Pulitzer Prize for publishing on Dec. 6, 1953, the day after the tornado hit. Two figures are shown beside the paperboy, with one man reading a copy of the paper. To the left and right are five other people, buildings damaged by the tornado and debris from them, including a piano.

Pat Cashman said he worked with Dafford to compose the composite scene for the mural.

Thursday’s audience included the Cashmans and volunteer chairman of the Vicksburg Riverfront Murals committee, Nellie Caldwell, and members of her extended family.

The artists do a similar projection-tracing for each mural, and Thursday’s audience of nine was small compared with some in other cities, Graeff said.

&#8220In some places, it has been a big production,” Graeff said. &#8220The whole town comes out,” with people sitting in lawn chairs to watch.

The artists estimate the tornado mural will take 300 man-hours, Graeff said.

&#8220It’s complicated, but it’s simple-complicated,” Graeff said.

He said Thursday’s rain, reported to be .57 inches, washed away the work because the last base coat had been applied only about three hours before the tracing and had yet to fully dry. Base paint was to be re-applied Friday and the re-tracing was to begin just after dark tonight. Graeff said the public is welcome to watch.

Graeff said the artist crew’s next step would be to begin applying paint to the scene. Chigoy said all the base coat would eventually be covered with paint for the scene.

Drawing using markers with &#8220the next-size-down tip, like a ball-point pen” would continue as the artists refine the work, Chigoy said.

Dafford himself oversees the work, and up to five artists may be working on it at one time, Chigoy said.

&#8220Sometimes it’ll jump up to an army of ants,” he said. &#8220Sometimes it’ll be one.”

One other mural is under way, a Civil War gunboat-battle scene with the city’s riverfront skyline in the background sponsored by the Vicksburg Warren County Historical Society and friends and family of the late Blanche Terry in her memory. Dafford was scheduled to be in Vicksburg next week to oversee the completion of that mural.

Unveiling ceremonies for the new murals have not been scheduled.

The tornado killed nearly 40 Vicksburg residents and left some trapped beneath debris. A man named Billy Byrd wrote a song about singing begun by Carol Moses, then 4 years old, who was credited with saving lives by beginning the singing of &#8220Jingle Bells” by people trapped in a downtown theater. Byrd is believed to live in Jackson but the mural committee has not been able to find him, Caldwell said.

&#8220We would love to get in touch with him,” Caldwell said. &#8220If he could sing that song (at the mural’s unveiling), that would be so awesome.”