A violent storm front came through Leflore and Carroll counties Monday afternoon, leaving power outages and downed trees in its wake.
Another round of showers and thunderstorms is expected tonight with lows in the upper 40s.
On Monday, 1.44 inches of rain fell at the Greenwood-Leflore Airport. The top wind gust was recorded at 47 miles per hour, according to the National Weather Service in Jackson.
At about 2 p.m. Monday, at the intersection of Rosemary and Peacock lanes, a dead tree toppled onto power lines, prompting a nearby utility pole to snap in two.
“There were several utility poles snapped and trees uprooted. ... It got nasty fairly quickly,” said Larry Griggs, executive vice president of operations for Greenwood Utilities.
The circuit where the pole snapped provides service to more than 800 customers, including Bankston Elementary School, and a traffic signal at the intersection of West Park Avenue and Grand Boulevard. The school dismissed early because of the outage.
Restoring service took approximately four hours because the storm system had to pass completely through before crews could begin making repairs, Griggs said.
Other outages in Greenwood were reported at Viking Range’s manufacturing operations on Viking Road and in a residential area from East Monroe Avenue to Kenneth Street in North Greenwood, Griggs said.
Itta Bena also reported power outages, but service was restored there within about 45 minutes, according to Greenwood-Leflore Emergency Management Director Fred Randle.
Trees also fell across Six-Mile Road and Gold Bell Road. All of them were quickly removed, Randle said.
Carroll County Civil Defense Director Gayle Beard said that although there were no reported power outages, numerous trees fell on Mississippi 17 south of U.S. 82 and Mississippi 35 south of U.S. 82.
The Associated Press reported that trees were down in nearly 20 counties across Mississippi In addition, more than 23,000 power outages were reported in the state.
The rainfall, though, was a welcome break to the longstanding drought that has put most of the state, including Leflore and Carroll counties, under a burn ban. The burn ban remains in effect.
Greenwood Public Works Director Susan Bailey said crews reported no localized flooding during the storm.
• Contact Bob Darden at 581-7239 or bdarden@gwcommonwealth.com.
