Since Mississippi and Louisiana weathered Hurricane Gustav’s pounding wind and rain, residents from across these states now face with the storm’s aftermath.
According to the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency, more than 14,000 evacuees were housed in Mississippi shelters and 44,841 total outages were reported statewide.
Electric Power Associations senior vice president Ron Stewart said by Thursday evening a majority of homes should have power reinstated.
“However, there will be some that remain without power,” he said. “It just takes a little longer to restore power in rural areas.”
Rain, road flooding and high winds have slowed down the time it takes to restore power, Stewart said.
“Any time weather conditions are not safe to work in, we will not place our emergency crews in [an unsafe situation],” he said.
MEMA public information officer Katherine Crowell said Harrison and Hancock counties received damaging weather as did many other counties.
“The state of Mississippi had more than 100 tornado warnings [after Gustav landed],” she said.
Crowell said she thinks everyone learned to take hurricanes very seriously after Hurricane Katrina.
“We were prepared for the worst, but luckily the worst didn’t come here,” she said. “We dodged a bullet.”
MEMA will be working with the Federal Emergency Management Agency when it comes to concerns about residents who have been living in temporary housing since Katrina, Crowell said.
“We will have to take that as it comes and address that as the needs arises,” she said.
Gov. Haley Barbour announced that he has requested a federal disaster declaration because of the hurricane.
“Although Mississippi was as prepared as possible to respond to Hurricane Gustav, this incident is of such severity and magnitude that supplementary federal assistance will be necessary,” Barbour said in a MEMA news release.
Since making landfall on Monday as a Category 2, Gustav has been reduced to a tropical depression.
According to the National Hurricane Center, flood and flash flood warnings are in effect for much of Louisiana, Arkansas, Western Mississippi and portions of eastern Oklahoma.
Assistant geosciences professor Grady Dixon said tropical depressions are usually accompanied by a great deal of rain and winds, although much weaker than those of hurricanes.
“Officially, tropical depressions have sustained winds of less than 39 mph, but gusts can be higher,” he said. “The heavy rain alone is enough to cause flash flooding, and the combination of heavy rain and gusty winds can often lead to the uprooting of trees.”
Dixon said the center of Gustav’s remnants are predicted to slowly move north and slightly east.
“This will keep it approximately 250 miles away from Starkville,” he said. “At that distance, there is a slim chance that we can experience some light showers, but we will mostly just see clouds.”
Associate geosciences professor Michael Brown said as Gustav continues to weaken the threat of tornadoes will decrease.
“Hurricanes, while they decrease in intensity after landfall, there are still threats of strong winds, heavy rainfall and tornadoes this far inland,” he said. “It is possible for Starkville to be under a warning, but as time goes on that risk decreases.”
Dixon said the university is very well prepared and administrators are always monitoring the weather and consulting with meteorologists on campus.
“Students and faculty should simply use common sense, monitor the news and weather and follow instructions issued by campus officials,” he said. “Everyone should always have emergency supplies on hand so that they do not have to rush local stores at the last minute.”
Brown said with the development of the Crisis Action Team, Mississippi State University plans response to weather and non-weather related threats.
“Given enough time MSU will be able to properly notify the students and faculty of an impending storm, direct people to shelter and continue to give updates until the threat has subsided.”
Benjamin Jordan, sophomore secondary math education major, said many people were preparing for the storm while he spent the weekend at home in Picayune for the Labor Day holiday.
“For the hurricane, my parents just stayed at home,” he said. “Grocery stores were closed and did not have any food, and gas stations were out of gas.”
Jordan said his parents were affected by the storm as well.
“They lost electricity for most of Monday when the storm made landfall and that night they got it back,” he said.
Grazed by Gustav
Shrimp boats ran aground during Hurricane Gustav’s storm surge in Pass Christian Harbor on Monday.
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