By Billy Davis and John Howell Sr.

Panola County got pounded by straight-line winds, and possibly by tornadoes, after a “lingering” storm front marched across northwest Mississippi early Wednesday morning.

“It was a stationary front that was lingering in the area, and it took off,” said Marlene Mickelson, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Memphis.

Nine counties in north Mississippi were hit by the storm, she said.

In Panola County, a member of the National Weather Service was surveying storm damage Wednesday for possible tornadic activity. A report of the findings would be known later in the day, Mickelson said.

Most of Panola’s storm damage came from straight-line winds, but tornadoes could have caused some damage, said Panola EMA Director Daniel Cole.

Cole said Crouch Road in the Eureka community, and the Sherwood Forest area south of Batesville, are possible sites of tornado activity. Damaged trees in those areas suggested they were smashed by a twister, he said.

“What I know for sure is that this is the worst damage we’ve seen since the ’94 ice storm,” said Cole, citing the downed power lines and damaged homes. 

A preliminary report Cole submitted to Miss. Emergency Management Agency (MEMA) estimated that 40 roads in the county were inaccessible due to downed trees and power lines.

He estimated, after conferring with first responders, that the storm knocked out power to 40 percent of Batesville and to one-third of the county. Those figures are approximate, he said.

A spokesman with TVEPA said early Wednesday morning that work crews were clearing debris to restore the main power lines.

Batesville suffered significant damage from the storm. In the Dogwood Hills subdivision, police were parked along Eureka Road to motion rubber-necking drivers past storm-damaged yards.

At 258 Dogwood Lane, homeowner Brooks Poland said his family moved to a hallway at about 4:16 a.m. The storm lasted no more than 20 minutes of which 10 minutes “was the worst,” he said.

In the yard, stripped limbs off a towering pine tree smashed into the back window and roof of a Buick Park Avenue. The limbs also poked three holes into the roof of the family’s home.

In neighbor George Fondren’s back yard next door, Poland showed where winds ripped the top from Fondren’s large oak tree.

Soon after the storm moved through, the Panola County Sheriff’s Department set up its emergency command center on Church Street in Batesville near the home of Dennis and Peggy Mangrum, where an ancient oak had demolished the front part of the house.

“That’s the bedroom where the children and grandchildren slept,” Peggy Mangrum said as she looked at the rubble occupying the spot.

She praised Batesville firefighters who arrived first following the crash, describing one firefighter she saw “carefully carrying my mother’s china” in hands made huge by his protective gloves.

Nearby on Church Street, another large oak had fallen across the mid-section of the old Graves house that had recently become the home of Cindy Stephens.

Around the corner on Bates Street, another tree was blown into the home of Batesville Police Department Captain Jimmy McCloud, said Sheriff Hugh “Shot” Bright.