Beware downed power lines, trees, officials said at morning briefing

Published 8:27 am Monday, August 30, 2021

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

NATCHEZ — Natchez and Adams County seem to have missed a great deal of damage that was expected from Hurricane Ida, which skirted just to the east of the area.

Adams County Sheriff Travis Patten said Natchez was blessed. “As far as I’m concerned, we dodged a bullet.”

However, all is not well. About 4,000 Entergy customers and 3,207 Southwest Electric Cooperative customers in Natchez and Adams County are without power this morning, and many downed trees have taken down power lines, which are still live. That’s about 57 percent of Southwest Electric’s total customers in Adams County.

Email newsletter signup

“We are asking people to stay indoors. We have lots of lives power lines down in the area,” Patten said.

At an 8 a.m. briefing this morning with Adams County and City of Natchez officials, Natchez Police Department Chief Joseph Daughtry reminded residents the city is under a curfew until noon today.

“We set that curfew at noon for a reason. We want to be able to get out and assess the damage and make sure it’s safe,” he said.

As daylight approached, the city and county began receiving calls from residents who have trees that have fallen on their homes, or reporting trees that have fallen across roadways, officials said.