The Coahoma County Board of Supervisors declared a state of emergency at a special called meeting on Tuesday morning in response to storms throughout the community that caused several power outages.
The storms occurred on Sunday night and knocked trees over and, in some cases, in the middle of the road. Some of the trees hit power lines, causing outages in different areas.
Coahoma County Emergency Management Agency Director Charles Hale reported that winds reached up to 69 miles per hour on Sunday night, causing damage to tree lines and power outages.
Hale said he conducted 21 damage assessments on Monday, and only two were considered major. He added that more assessments were being done on Tuesday.
Clarksdale Public Utilities, with the help of Grays Power Supply, has been restoring power in some areas. Entergy and Coahoma Electric are also restoring power lines.
Clarksdale Public Works and the Coahoma County Road Department are cleaning up the areas where tree lines were damaged.
As of Tuesday morning, Hale said there were still 384 power outages. He added that 256 houses were in areas with Entergy customers, and 128 were in areas with CPU customers. He did not know how many homes in the Coahoma Electric area were still without power.
“Most of the business districts are up. However, some may lose,” he said. “They’re still working, so some of them may go down and continue to go back up as they continue to work.”
Board President Johnny Newson, who represents District 4, praised the efforts of CPU.
“If we only have 384 houses, it appears CPU has been working very diligently to make sure that they are brought back up as soon as they can,” he said.
County Administrator Kim Seals said citizens who need to cool off and get water could go to the Coahoma County Expo Center and the Clarksdale Civic Auditorium.
“We already told the citizens that they had two places that they could go,” she said. “They’ve been open since yesterday.”
Both the Expo Center and Civic Auditorium are currently open 24 hours.
Newson and Clarksdale Mayor Chuck Espy spoke about steps that are being taken to fix the issues and provide relief in a video on Monday afternoon.
“It’s very rare that we encompass incidents like this, but we know things like this happen,” Newson said. “This is nature, and we can’t control nature. We have a situation where we have trees down, lines down, telegram poles. But I must say the entire city, CPU, the mayor’s office, the Board of Supervisors office, and the road department are working diligently to try to rectify some of these problems we have.”
Espy expressed similar sentiments.
“Everybody’s working hand-in-hand with CPU, and there’s a lot of work that’s happened,” he said. “What we want to do is tell you there have been a lot of assessments. There has not been a loss of life. There are people who are very concerned about not having air.”
Espy said the Civic Auditorium’s front area, annex, and mirror room are available. He encouraged citizens to use the mirror room where water could be available, and there would be an area to sit outside under the air.
For safety purposes, Espy urged everyone to stay away from tree and power lines until the damage is repaired.
“This is an act of nature,” he said. “This is nothing that we can control, but what we can control is how we work together to solve this problem.”
With the state of emergency declared, Hale told the Supervisors that more assistance may be available.
Hale said citizens who need water, to get out of the heat, and to charge their phones can go to the Expo Center and Civic Auditorium, and the American Red Cross may provide assistance.
“It starts on local and ends on local, so while we’re taking a fresh proclamation to start helping our own citizens,” he said. “If the state declares a proclamation, then that would just add more funds to build on what we’re trying to do to assist the citizens of Coahoma County.”
Newson said not having power impacts refrigeration.
District 2 Supervisor Pat Davis said anyone on food stamps who has issues with refrigeration may be eligible for state assistance.
Davis also provided a heads up to citizens as power is being restored throughout the community.
“If the weather head is torn from the house, they need to be contacting a local electrician,” he said.
If lights do not come on as a result of the weather head being torn from the house, Davis said the power company will not fix it. He said the homeowner would have to contact an electrician.
District 3 Supervisor Derrell Washington asked if the EMA had a system to communicate.
Hale said there is a ready alert for anyone who signed up for it.
“Are you doing anything on social media as far as emergency management?” Washington said.
Hale said the Board of Supervisors approved EMA having a social media page.
“I think it will be best to try to do something to get some type of social media page,” Washington said.
Washington recommended a web page that could be run through Facebook.
Anyone who needs damage assessment done on their home may contact Coahoma County Emergency Management at (662) 624-3041.
