WDAM 7’s First Alert Weather declared a First Alert Day on Wednesday as severe weather moved through the Pine Belt, and a tornado watch followed around 2:30 p.m. Storm shelters began opening after the watch was issued as the threat intensified across the region.
Lamar County Sheriff Danny Rigel said damage had been reported around Industrial Park near Lamar Christian School, and he urged residents to stay inside because trees were down over roadways. Emergency crews and first responders were working to clear the roads at the time of the report.
By midafternoon, the storm system had forced a string of tornado warnings across south Mississippi. A warning was in effect for Forrest County until 8 p.m., another for Forrest and Lamar counties until 7:30 p.m., a third for Marion and Lamar counties until 7:15 p.m., and the National Weather Service also issued a warning for Walthall County until 6:45 p.m.
WDAM 7 Chief Meteorologist Patrick Bigbie said models showed a tornado on the ground between Forrest and Lamar counties, underscoring how quickly the weather had turned dangerous. The Pine Belt was already dealing with outages as the storms moved through. PowerOutage.us reported 923 Southern Pine Electric customers without power and 1,796 Pearl River Valley Electric Power Association customers experiencing outages.
Both utilities said the number of affected members was climbing. Southern Pine Electric said it had about 1,000 members without power, while Pearl River Valley EPA said it had over 700 members without service. The outages came as crews tried to keep pace with the storm damage and blocked roads across the area.
The immediate question in the Pine Belt on Wednesday was not whether the weather could turn severe; it already had. The issue was how much damage the tornado warnings, downed trees and outages would leave behind once the storms moved on.