Two roads still blocked, some remain without power after heavy rain
Published 9:54 am Tuesday, October 27, 2015
- STANDING GUARD: A Warren County sheriff’s deputy blocks Campbell Swamp Road Monday morning after a tree fell across the road, blocking it and taking down a power line after heavy rain and strong winds hit Vicksburg and Warren County.
Two roads in Warren County and Halls Ferry Road in Vicksburg remained blocked, and 475 people remained without power countywide this morning as city and county residents and workers continued cleaning up after a weekend storm system hit the area with heavy rains and high winds.
Vicksburg street department superintendent Skipper Whittington said Halls Ferry Road from Confederate Avenue north to Bowmar Avenue was closed while street crews finish removing a downed pecan tree that fell during Monday’s storm, blocking the road, taking multiple utility lines down and damaging five utility poles.
“We’re waiting right now AT&T, Vicksburg Video and Entergy to finish restoring their lines,” Whittington said. “We’re going to keep the road closed until they do. We don’t want to have the lines replaced and then have something happen and take them down again.”
The falling tree cut out power to a large number of residents in the area on either side of Halls Ferry. Some areas around Halls Ferry and Division remained without power.
As of this morning, 22 residents on Division and National streets were without power and seven were without power on Marcus Street, according to Entergy’s website. Other outages were scattered throughout the city with largest in the city being 21 people without power on Wabash Avenue in north Vicksburg.
Entergy customer service representative Shelia McKinnis said largest number of customers in the county without power as of 7:30 a.m. today was on Jeff Davis Road, where all 92 households were affected.
In the county, Warren County Emergency Management director John Elfer said a tree was blocking Hankinson Road, while downed power lines blocked Beechwood Road.
The storm hit Saturday evening, and before breaking up late Monday evening, dumped more than five inches of rain in Warren County and produced winds with speeds measuring between 18 to 28 mph with gusts as high as 41 mph.
Warren County Sheriff Martin Pace said most of the county’s roads that were blocked Monday morning had been cleared, adding county road crews were removing debris from the roads.
“They had so many roads blocked, they just cut through and cleared the way. They have some very big trees on the side of the road,” he said. “I hope we’re over with this.”
Vicksburg Police Chief Walter Armstrong said the city has no reports of streets under water during the storm, but officers worked a large number of accidents caused by the slick streets, adding none were serious and there were no injuries.
At the height of the storm Monday, more than 5,000 Entergy customers in Vicksburg and Warren County were without power, including Bowmar Elementary School and Vicksburg High School. The Vicksburg Warren County E911 system also went down when a generator at the city’s Castle Hill repeater pole failed to startup immediately after power went down, making it impossible for county law enforcement and city employees to communicate.
Daniel Lamb, a forecaster with the National Weather Service Office in Jackson, said the rainy weather was predicted to taper off Tuesday, changing to scattered showers and then moving out of the area Wednesday.
“There may be some clouds remaining by Wednesday, but it will be dry,” he said.
Lamb said the wind and rain were part of a low-pressure area that moved north from the coast, adding moisture from the remnants of Hurricane Patricia were mixed into the system. He said the storm made landfall Saturday about 55 miles north of Manzinar, Mexico, and then moved north/northeast.