Up to their necks in Possumneck – a tornado damage and “help needed” update

Let’s start with a big SLABBED “thank you” to all who have offered assistance.  Mississippi has an “official clearinghouse” for those who want to volunteer or make a donation.  However, I would be remiss not to mention the Red Cross as an option as virtually every news article on last weekend’s tornado has mentioned one or more assistance services the Red Cross has provided.

If you want to make a more personal donation, I suggest contacting a neighbor-helping-neighbors — the owner of the Black and White Department Store in Yazoo City.  A friend from Yazoo City who knows the store’s owner told me he was providing “gift certificates” to those who need new clothes.

I plan to purchase a gift certificate and ask that it be given to a high school senior who will be graduating next month.  You can purchase over the phone 662- 746-2571‎ or mail a check to 236 South Main Street; Yazoo City, MS 39194-4010.

Now, the story from Possumneck –TIMBER!

Forestry officials are surveying the damage and calculating the potential loss to Mississippi’s nearly billion-dollar timber industry.

Snapped at the wrong place. Deeply splintered. Trees damaged by Saturday’s storm may be unusable or damaged enough to fetch less money for investors and school districts that harvest the wood on 16 section land.

State officials will do aerial flyovers today, an attempt to get a better understanding of how much of the $19.8 million in timberland was damaged.

The gentleman from Possumneck inspecting damaged pine owned 300 acres of timber.  The regional manager of a timber management company described the damage as looking like “dropped, uncooked spaghetti or pickup sticks laying in all different ways”.

As you’ll see in the photographs below, timber wasn’t all that looked like “pickup sticks laying in all different ways”.

The Clarion-Ledger continues to regularly update the paper’s comprehensive coverage on the tornadoes and the estimated insured damage north of $50 million dollars.  The Ledger also has aerial  photographs of the tornado damage.  The one below shows the “harvesting of timber” in tornado’s path.

Timber, of course, was not the only business damage reported. Yazoo County had approximately 40 businesses damaged, 15 of them totally destroyed.

The most recent numbers I’ve seen for damaged housing are from just six of the nineteen counties reporting tornado damage.  As of yesterday, the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency was reporting at least 730 houses in Holmes, Yazoo, Attala, Choctaw, Monroe, Union and Warren counties were destroyed or received major or minor damage.

Join SLABBED in hoping all the tarps hold through the bad weather predicted for this weekend.  Once again, thank you who offered assistance.

More photographs showing timber damage.