Severe weather keeps distribution crews busy

Severe weather kept Mississippi Power crews busy Sunday evening into early Monday morning.

Heavy rain and storms caused about 18 separate outage events affecting 443 customers.

A suspected tornado that touched down near Jackson caused a transmission outage to the Walnut Grove substation, leaving almost 300 customers without power for almost six hours, said Charlie Sentell, customer operations manager.

Outages or blinks on the system were also reported in Hickory, Laurel, Sumrall and the Pine Belt and Meridian service areas.

“As always, the focus of our employees is to restore power as quickly as possible while being as safe as possible,” Sentell said, adding that 31 Mississippi Power distribution crew employees worked to restore power.

As of 9 a.m. Monday, power had been restored to all but 81 customers.