Overnight storms leave damage, no reported injuries

January 1, 2011

Paul Sims/SDN An overnight storm ripped the roof off a building in The Grove apartments in south Starkville and damaged at least one vehicle in the vicinity.

Strong overnight storms left a path of destruction across south Starkville but no reported injuries as of this morning.
This latest round of severe storms is the second within the last five weeks to leave damage behind. This time, the debris field stretches across an approximately 2-mile trail from Bryan Field Airport near the city's southwestern tip to the vicinity of Starkville Academy.
This morning, Starkville Chief Administrative Officer Lynn Spruill sorted personal effects from a shattered outbuilding on property related to her personal business.
"We're very fortunate we didn't have the same kind of damage we had with The Pines," she said. In the overnight hours of Nov. 29-30, an EF-2 tornado left multiple homes destroyed in the The Pines Mobile Home Park and damaged several other locations around Starkville and on the Mississippi State University campus.
Spruill said there were no reported injuries as a result of the storms which struck Starkville in the early hours of New Year's Day.
The worst-known damage to a dwelling with this latest round of severe weather came at The Grove apartments on Lynn Lane.
The roof is torn off Building Five. One car's rear windshield is broken out and several other vehicles appeared to receive damage. Insulation from Building Five left the grounds around it looking like snow had recently fallen.
Holly Henson, the manager of The Grove, says most if not all the tenants in Building Five will be displaced.
"We've got vacant units we'll set them up in," she said.
The following is a list of other damaged areas visibly seen by Starkville Daily News staff:
• Bryan Field Airport. A hangar's doors were bent in and a door overhang of the main building at the airport was pulled off its supports.
• Industrial Park Road. The outbuilding on Spruill's property lay in pieces, plus a transfer-truck-sized trailer lay on its side at an unidentified business.
• Spruill Industrial Park Road. Roof damage to an unidentified business.
• Starkville Sportsplex. Numerous soccer goals flipped around and over, at least one tree down, dugouts on the softball fields ripped off and several bleachers moved around.
• Lynn Lane, aside from The Grove, two other apartment buildings just to the west suffered structural damage.
• Louisville Street and Academy Road. Wind peeled the roof off a car wash at the intersection of these two streets and scattered the sheet metal from the roof several hundred feet down Academy Road, with the last visible piece laying in front of Oby's restaurant.

Editor's note: Look for additional photos and coverage Sunday in the print edition of the Starkville Daily News and on the website.