Storms cause outages, flooding

Compared to other parts of the state, Marshall County's weather-related problems from last weekend's storms were minimal.

Severe weather, including tornadoes, ravaged other parts of Mississippi Sunday ­ taking 12 lives and leaving lots of destruction.

The Coronavirus pandemic has put enough struggles on communities in the state and it was worsened by the recent storms, said Marshall County Emergency Management Coordinator Hugh Hollowell.

Marshall and DeSoto counties dealt with a number of power outages in the Northcentral Electric Cooperative and the Holly Springs Utility Department service areas. Employees struggled long hours to get electricity back on under adverse weather conditions. Bill Stone, general manager for

HSUD, said the utility had from 1,000 to 1,200 outages at the peak of the storm. Areas affected were near Ashland, with a circuit out of the Coldwater Substation, and a line west of Holly Springs toward Red Banks.

Stone said wind following the second round of storms that came through around 11 p.m. Sunday caused concern.

Over the system, some individual transformers blew up when lightning stuck and others outages were caused by breakers being tripped.

"At one time two circuits outside Ashland tripped," he said.

The circuit breaker on the pole, when it trips, stops the substation circuit breakers from tripping, protecting the system from more wide-spread outages.

Crews started working early Sunday morning and worked until midnight, he said.

Crews that didn't work Sunday were on a rotation Monday trying to restore about 100 outages scattered over the area, he said.

Utility workers had to hike in to cut trees off lines in some remote areas, he said. And some poles were downed and will require significant reconstruction.

Sunday's workers came in late Monday afternoon to start a second day.

Stone said the employees mounted a sustained effort to manage the restoration of power.

"I think we've done a good job rotating people through," Stone said. "Our people hit the ground running. Some who worked through the weekend worked today (Monday). I think we made good progress cleaning up isolated outages."

Northcentral Electric Cooperative began its work to restore power early Sunday when the first round of thunderstorms came through, said Michael Bellipanni, director of marketing and business development. Lightning caused a transformer fire in the Pleasant Hill area that had crews rebuilding two poles, he said.

"We got power restored to the roughly 130 members who were affected by mid-day Sunday," Bellipanni said.

The storm that passed through around 10:45 Sunday evening cut power to nearly 300 members in the southern part of Northcentral's service area. It was reported that a tree had fallen, taking down lines and poles in the Red Banks/I-22 area. Four crews worked until midnight.

"The sustained 50-plus mph winds really made it difficult throughout the night with more outages being reported," he said. "Additional personnel were brought in around 2:30 this morning (Monday). We had to replace two broken poles that were located in an areas that were difficult to access. By 2 p.m. Monday, we had all but four outages restored."

He continued, "We are very fortunate that this event wasn't as destructive as those in other parts of the state. With concerns about the wellbeing of our employees during the COVID-19 pandemic, asking for assistance or sending help to our sister cooperatives takes on a new level of planning. Tuesday morning (of this week), we'll be sending a crew to assist Tallahatchie Valley Electric Power Association in Batesville. To keep our folks safe, we are equipping them with masks, sanitizers and extra cleaning supplies. They will work together and return back to their homes at the end of the day rather than stay in a hotel. Hopefully these measures will keep them safe and enable them to restore power to those who were hit harder than Northcentral."

North East Mississippi Electric Power Association had total outages over the period from Sunday until Tuesday morning of about 11,000, according to Marlin Williams, manager of member services.

Monday about 5,000 outages remained at the end of the day and as of Tuesday morning the outages were down to about 1,900.

Outages came in two waves, Williams said. Electricity was just about restored to all members from the first wave when the second wave hit taking a heavy toll on the infrastructure. He said poles went down and tree limbs got over power lines from the straight-line 70 mph winds Sunday night.

Eighteen substations were affected by downed lines, particularly those coming out of Taylor.

Customers in Abbeville and in Marshall County were also out of power for long periods.

Crews had to replace poles then get lines back on the poles, a laborious and timecomsuming process. Time to recover also was affected by the terrain.

Crews were sent home Monday night to get rest and eat after a more or less 30-hour continuous work shift. They returned Tuesday morning along with help from other electric power companies that came to their aid.

Williams expressed appreciation to the members for their patience and kindness during this recovery period. Many encouraged North East crews and expressed their appreciation through social media, he said.

Flooding

Stormwaters were also a problem following the dumping of 5.4 inches of rain from early Easter Sunday morning to the last storm that rolled through about 10:30 p.m., according to Hollowell.

Flooding was seen across the county, county administrator Larry Hall said. Some large and some small culverts were undermined when stormwater swished and swirled under the culverts on the inlet side. The headwalls on some bridges were also threatened.

Two areas with larger washouts included Coefield Cove and Levi Bell Road. Lots of trees were also downed.

Water got over the road in many places.

Hollowell expressed relief. "We dodged a major bullet again," he said. "I'm thankful it wasn't worse. It (the rain) quit at just the right time Sunday to let some of the water recede before the second round blew through. The second round was not nearly as bad as the first. We just had wind. "I appreciate the citizens' compliance in trying to be safe by social distancing and so on. I know it is really hard on some people."