A severe weather event Monday in Sumrall caused seven people to be transported to medical care and damaged several homes and recreational facilities in the area.
James Smith, director of the Lamar County Emergency Management Agency, said his team confirmed major damage to the Sumrall Group Home on Mississippi 589, from which seven residents were transported to local hospitals.
“We’re not going to say ‘tornado’ right yet, but we do have confirmed damage in Sumrall,” he said. “We have transported seven patients from the group home to the hospitals.”
Emergency management officials are still in the process of checking the area, but other than the group home, only minor damage remained as of Monday evening.
“We’re checking the immediate area now – the downstream and upstream area – firemen and law enforcement officers are checking that,” Smith said. “So we don’t know exactly yet, but we heard of some minor damage.
“We’re checking it out, but it’s nothing major except for (at the group home). So that’s what we’re in the process of now, is just confirming on that, because we know we have major structure damage there.”
Lamar County District 5 Supervisor Dale Lucus said approximately 20 houses – including some near the Hudson Farm on Poplar Street and a few off Rocky Branch Road – were damaged by the storm, along with the baseball fields at the sports complex off Mississippi 42.
“It actually moved the wire off the post (at the sports complex), and I’ve never seen that happen before,” he said. “And we’ve got several houses – I think there was maybe a house and some sheds and stuff damaged off Big Hill road too. So we’ve got a good bit of stuff that’s been damaged.”
Sen. Joey Fillingane of Sumrall said the seven people that were transported to the hospital were released and are in good condition, but may be displaced for some time.
“One of the houses was completely destroyed – the roof is off and one of the walls is just leaning outward,” he said. “The one closer to the highway, they’re still trying to assess, and they have people from the Department of Finance and Administration here looking at that.
“It has a lot of structural damage, so I’m not sure they’ll be able to put it back up without having to tear it down and start over. The bad thing is, even though the state has insurance coverage on it, I’m told that there’s a $500,000 deductible, so the state is still going to have to come up with a half a million dollars to access the insurance because of the deductible situation.”
In addition, the American Legion Post 61 building on Mississippi 589 was heavily damaged, along with the shipping center near the sports complex.
“The county’s got equipment out here now, cleaning everything up,” Mayor Heath Sumrall said. “We’re moving limbs and trees right now as we speak, and we’ve called the state highway department.
“We’ve got some trees here on the side of the Legion that need to be removed, because I think they’ll be a danger in the future, so I called the state and they told us to go ahead and remove them. We’ve just got a lot of damage everywhere you look over here, but it’s being rapidly cleaned up.”
This is a developing story and will be updated as more information comes in.
