Wind gusts Thursday tore the roof from a city motel and toppled trees and power lines across the county, sparking fires and causing road closings.

At Battlefield Inn a portion of the roof covering 31 rooms was crumpled and twisted by a gust of a powerful wind that left the mass of steal and tin leaning against a pine tree.

Maintenance worker Dewayne Jackson said he and other motel employees were standing behind a glass door beside the motel courtyard when they noticed the strong wind about 2:30 p.m. They thought nothing of it, he said, until the wind began to pick up leaves from the bottom of the motel’s empty 10-foot swimming pool. Then out of nowhere came the roaring sound of bending metal.

“It just twisted like it was paper,” Jackson said.

The motel recently finished a $300,000 renovation project, said owner Dave Patel as he stood on a Civil War-era cannon to the west of the building to get a better vantage point to survey the damage.

Patel was showing a potential guest Room 124 on the first floor of the motel when the roof directly above them was ripped from the building. Then cinder blocks, limbs and satellite dishes came crashing down around them. He said he was amazed that neither he nor his guest was injured.

“I was not even 3 feet away from those blocks when they came down,” he said.

If it weren’t for the slender pine tree holding up the damaged portion of the roof, the twisted metal would have ended up in the pool, he said.

“It wasn’t even like this. It was a nice bright day,” he said as he braced himself against the wind. “If the pool was open, people would have been sitting in the pool area. I’m glad it was not open.”

Jason Polillo of New Jersey was sitting in his room below the damaged area when he heard the roof being ripped off. He stayed in his room until he saw others outside surveying the damage.

“It looks like a light war zone,” he said.

A home burned on Eagle Lake about 3 p.m., but whether the fire was caused by the wind remained under investigation, Eagle Lake Volunteer Fire Department Chief Bill Parker said. The home at 18365 Mississippi 465, owned by Hays and Billie Latham, was a total loss, Parker said.

Even if the windstorm didn’t cause the fire, gusts helped the blaze spread to surrounding trees. Firefighters were able to contain the fire about 10 p.m., he said.

“We had to pump a lot of water to try to get those trees out,” Parker said.

Another home had minor damage after a tree fell on it on Overlook Drive, Sheriff Martin Pace said.

“At this point we have not had any other structural damages reported,” he said.

The sheriff’s department fielded 15 calls across the county for roadways either partially or completely blocked by trees, he said.

“A lot of those trees did have power lines entangled, which made the removal much slower as county road crews had to wait on electrical companies,” he said.

No injuries were reported, he said.

Downed trees and power lines or brush fires were reported at Briarwood Place, Grange Hall Road, Old Mississippi 27, Indiana Avenue, Oak Ridge Road, Mosely Gap Road, North Frontage Road, Hayes Street at Clay Street and Freetown Road at Henry Road.

At the height of the windstorm about 5 p.m. about 200 people and businesses were without power, Entergy spokesman Don Arnold said.

“I think we have less than a dozen out right now that we should have back on before lunch,” Arnold said this morning.

The outages were spread across the county in isolated incidents, Arnold said.

The strong winds were caused by air moving from areas of low pressure to the west and high pressure to the east, said National Weather Service meteorologist Alan Campbell.

He said sustained winds were 25 to 30 mph and the gusts were up to 40 mph.

Campbell blamed soggy ground for the number of fallen trees across the county.

Vicksburg has received 6.71 inches of rain for February, which is 2.53 inches above normal for the month, he said. For the year, the city has received 10.75 inches of rain — 1.5 inches above normal.

“Certainly with as much rainfall as we’ve had the ground there is certainly potential for trees falling,” he said.