Again we are left wondering

We were warned all last week by state and local emergency authorities that the potential for an outbreak of severe storms was very high all throughout Mississippi. While the tornadoes and high winds were devastating north, central and east Mississippi, we kept an eye out for the same. Copiah County–again–dodged a bullet.

All told, most areas of Copiah County received less than a quarter inch of rain during the muggy, windy 40-hour event. As much bad weather as was predicted for our area, one was ready for a prolonged deluge complete with rapid lightning and thunder, downed trees and power outages. Alas, the dust around the baseball field parking lots and along driveways was barely disturbed.

Many of us have friends or relatives that were in the area of the path of destruction stretching from the Mississippi River northeast to nearly the Alabama line. I spoke with a family friend who lives along River Road in Yazoo County just a few miles from the path. Still rattled, he told the story of how the wind picked up and shook his home. The rainfall was so sudden and so heavy that collectible glass Coke bottles he displays on his back porch were nearly filled with water from the sideways rain–amazing when considering the narrow opening of the mouth of those bottles. But, he and his property are ok.

Let’s pray for those hundreds affected by this weekend’s storms. Let’s also help out by donating items of need or volunteering on the ground level in one of the affected communities. (See press release below.) But, let’s also remember that though Copiah County was spared this round, that we shouldn’t allow ourselves to be lulled to sleep by the misses. After all, we have already had a tornado event in the county in 2010, though not on the scale of the one on Saturday in more northerly parts of the state.

Once again, why was it them and not us?

Joe Buck Coates