yesterday, a friend of mine in town said that she was getting ready to leave her trailor and go find a safe place to be because a tornado had been sighted and that meant that our county was under warning. of course i didn't think it was a big deal, it seemed like any other rain storm to me. so imagine my surprise when I saw this:
"A tornado damaged the Mississippi State campus and destroyed multiple mobile homes at University Hills Mobile Home Park Sunday afternoon as a powerful storm system spun from the remnants of Hurricane Rita moved through the area."
Our local paper had a bit more information, including quoting a student as saying, "There was crap flying everywhere." Ironically, while we had the sighting and warning throughout the morning, the skies seemed to be clearing up in the afternoon. That's when a funnel came ripping through, although they sounded the alarms, it was too late.
MSU is still assessing the damaged caused by the tornado that tore up trees, tore down power and phone lines, disrupted water and natural gas lines, and left Perry cafeteria damaged (it is one of the older buildings on campus).
In general, there has been lots of structural damage, to the buildings. Windows on vehicles have shattered and debris litters the entire campus and surrounding areas. Classes have been canceled for the time being.
Because the American Red Cross shelter here is overpacked with evacuees from Katrina, the city officials opened the City Hall so that the residents whose homes were damaged had a place to go. Also, campus officials asked for the assistance of 20 city/county/and State police officers...mostly for crowd control as rubber-neckers tend to do more harm than good.
Welcome to my home, Starkville, Mississippi.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I hoped this had nothing to do with your town. damnit.
ReplyDelete