SPD prepared for severe weather this spring

With severe weather like yesterday starting to ramp up again as spring nears and with crowd restrictions dropped for the first time in a year, first responders are going to be more active than ever.

Tornado season begins with spring in Mississippi as the atmosphere begins to heat up and cause instability with the cold air. It is important to have a severe weather action plan in place each year for when tornado season does roll around.

Last April alone, Mississippi saw 24 tornadoes, and the year total was at 82 reported by the National Weather Service. Nearly 30 percent of all of the tornadoes reported were in one month alone – the month that is exactly two weeks away.

“We still are not allowed to gather as a group yet, so instead of recognizing a single hometown hero was a hard thing to do,” Coats said. “We adjusted last year with that and we did all the presentations virtually, and I asked all of heroes to send pictures so we can post them on social media, but this year what they wanted to do was, because so many people have been vital to life in the last year, instead of recognizing a single person as a hometown hero, recognize all essential workers.”

Coats talked a little about who Modern Woodmen classified as an essential worker, and she encourages you to stop by their Main Street location right next to Pita Pit and pick up a sign for your house or business.

“I’m waiting for the storm to pass today, but I’m definitely going out to Four County and Starkville Electric because of their work after the ice storm,” Coats said. “We’ve put them at doctors’ offices, urgent cares, the police department, the sheriff’s department, hospitals. On campus we put them in the yards of buildings of the campus police, but also custodial services, landscape services - those people that had to work hard through it all.”

The people who have worked through the pandemic, never stopping, and making sure we can all live comfortably during stressful times have not only been essential to the economy but to the mental health of the community. They have helped maintain a small and gracious since of normalcy and definitely deserve all the thanks they receive and more.