*This article has been updated to include additional counties that have reported damage from Hurricane Laura
Last week, Hurricane Laura made landfall near Cameron, Louisiana as a Category 4 storm, and while Mississippi wasn’t in its direct path, the state still felt the effects of the storm.
The Mississippi Emergency Management Agency has released its preliminary damage report from the storm, which brought tropical-storm-force winds, flooding and even a spin-up tornado to Mississippi.
MEMA’s report shows that peak wind gusts exceeded 40 mph across the western portion of the state. Additionally, the National Weather Service confirmed that an EF-0 tornado touched down in Lafayette County.
At this time, Adams, Alcorn, Jefferson Davis, Sunflower, Warren and Wayne Counties are the counties reporting damage to MEMA. Here are overall preliminary totals of damage reported:
- Adams – nine homes damaged/affected; one public building damaged
- Alcorn – one home damaged/affected; one business damaged/affected; one public building damaged/affected; one injury reported
- Sunflower – one home damaged/affected
- Warren – two homes damaged/affected
- Wayne– six public roads major damage
- Jefferson Davis – five homes damaged/affected; three roads damaged/affected
*MEMA explained that these are initial reports and numbers could change the upcoming days.
Residents can self-report damage to county emergency management agencies through MEMA’s self-reporting tool. Those links for each county can be found on our website https://www.msema.org/.
