Houston’s emergency response answers the call during tornado
HOUSTON, MISS. (WCBI) – As severe weather blew through North Mississippi, first responders were on the lookout to lend support as quickly as possible.
Damage was widespread in some areas.
Severe weather started moving into the area overnight Friday and the pre-dawn hours Saturday morning, and in our area, Chickasaw County was one of the first to take a hit.
High winds caused falling trees and damage to homes and contributed to car accidents. Heavy rains led to flooding.
The Chickasaw County Emergency Management team was on the job throughout all of that, the damage assessment, and the start of clean-up.
EMA Director, Linda Griffin said getting ready for something like this and responding to it is a team effort, and Chickasaw County has a strong team.
“We work well together here in Chickasaw County,” Griffin said. “All the emergency response including 911, it starts with them, they don’t get a lot of credit and I’m always the face or the voice in the camera, but I sure can’t do it on my own. We have many volunteers who were out responding, out in the severe weather just like we are, and they do it without a paycheck.”
Those high winds also brought down power lines, leaving hundreds in the dark.
Safety Director for the Natchez Trace Electric Power Association, Brian Crump said it’s their priority to get the power back on as quickly as possible to the homes that are able to be serviced.
“Make sure that we are going to have our people intact when we know they are coming,” Crump said. “We work with our state-wide entity, Electric Co-ops of Mississippi, to help other people and have them help us. In a case like this, it is so widespread, everybody trying to help themselves so sometimes it’s the slow going when it gets towards the end and everybody’s tired, but we do what we can to try to get everybody back on as quickly as possible.”
Crump said he was able to identify many homes without power from the 911 calls.
Chickasaw County’s 911 dispatchers played a vital role in connecting people with the services they needed.
Dispatcher Chasity Criddle said with all the problems in the air from weather she and her team answers the call to see how they can assist.
“Anytime we have anything like this our dispatchers are extremely prepared,” Criddle said. “We’ve got Miss Linda, Our EMA director, she helps us out in extreme circumstances. She kind of like the backbone. Everybody works so well; it doesn’t matter who I call or where I call, they’re coming to help. We’ve had officers come out early before their shift started, they come out to help with the storm, we’ve had fire departments that was out and ready, everybody.”
Chickasaw County Emergency Management said they appreciate the contributions of everyone who has helped in the response to the storms.
