The Mississippi Emergency Management Agency (MEMA) has issued an initial damage report from Thursday’s severe weather that swept across the state.
According to MEMA, one person in Rankin County was injured. Homes were damaged in Hinds, Lowndes, and Rankin counties with additional damage assessments expected to be released later Friday.
As of 11:15 a.m., over 35,000 customers were still without power. Counties with the most outages are:
- Rankin – 16,442
- Hinds – 7,018
- George – 3,151
- Scott – 1,717
Crews have been working to restore power in homes and businesses with the peak of outages coming down from 64,000.
“Thank you to all the first responders, emergency managers, and crews who are working to help those affected,” Gov. Tate Reeves said. “Our state appreciates you.”
A now-restored power outage at the O.B Curtis Water Treatment Plant in Ridgeland has resulted in a systemwide boil water advisory being issued across the city of Jackson. Ted Henifin, the interim third-party manager for JXN Water, said operations should be back in order by the end of the day.
“Probably as late as last fall or even winter, if we had this same situation, recovery would be days – not hours,” Henifin said, noting the work his team has done to revamp a historically poor water system. “That’s the biggest difference.”
In the meantime, Jackson Mayor Chokwe Lumumba has declared a State of Emergency that will be reviewed every seven days as recovery efforts continue.
