Storm wrecks Magnolia; thousands without power (2024)

Emergency officials were assessing damage and power companies were busy restoring service Wednesday morning after a tornado-warned storm swept through parts of Pike and Amite counties Tuesday evening, downing trees and power lines and leaving thousands of people in the dark.

Magnolia took a hard hit as high winds knocked down trees throughout the city and took out the town’s only traffic signal.

The city board had a hastened meeting in total darkness, save for officials using the flashlights on their cell phones to keep up with the agenda as the police and fire chiefs listened to their radios for damage reports and weather updates.

Pike County Civil Defense Deputy Director Tyler Touchstone said the southern part of the county took the hardest hit — “everything basically south of the Sunnyhill, Fernwood area to the Louisiana state line.”

Civil defense officials said at least four houses were damaged after trees fell on them. They were located in Fernwood, along Highway 48 east and on Pike 93.

At least two vehicles were damaged, including a Jeep owned by Damon Spears that was crushed when a tree fell on it and a South Pike School District van.

High winds tossed portable buildings around at a business in Magnolia.

“There’s still a lot of roads that nobody can get down,” Touchstone said.

Significant damage was reported along 48 west of Magnolia, Highway 568 and Muddy Springs and Kennedy roads, he said.

Magnolia Electric Power still had about 5,000 outages Wednesday morning, down from about 8,500 immediately following the storm Tuesday evening. The storm darkened nearly all of Entergy’s grid from Highway 98 south through Louisiana on Tuesday evening, leaving some 2,000 customers without power, but crews had restored much of that service by Wednesday morning. Fernwood remained without electrical service.

Pike County Civil Defense Director Tina Reed said she believed the damage was the result of either straight line winds or a powerful downburst.

“All of the trees I’ve seen, the trees are blown over. They’re not snapped off and twisted,” she said, noting the typical tell-tale sign of tornado damage. “I expect more stuff to be reported today.”

Amite County Civil Defense Director J.D. Paulk said damage was spread throughout the county.

“We’re still currently doing damage assessments right now,” he said. “We got a lot of trees down and a lot of power outages. They have restored power to some areas. We still have some people without power.”

Paulk said Wednesday that he was getting ready to launch a drone to get a bird’s eye view of the aftermath.

“It’s all kind of spread out. There’s no consolidated area,” he said. “There was some damage between the Gloster and Centreville area but not as bad as it was in other parts of the county. We did have a few trees on roadways that struck vehicles.”

Paulk said he received reports of trees falling onto occupied vehicles during the storm, but no serious injuries were reported as a result.

Louisiana State Police reported that the northbound and southbound lanes of Interstate 55 were closed Tuesday near Amite due to fallen trees. Heavy damage also was reported in Kentwood, La.

Reed said the storm, which triggered two tornado warnings after 5 p.m., was surprisingly bad. She said another round of storms is expected later today, and Pike County is again considered to be at the less-severe marginal risk, as was the case Tuesday.

“We were in the marginal risk area. It wasn’t supposed to be bad, and all of a sudden it got bad,” she said. “It kind of caught everybody by surprise.”

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