Wicker for Senate

NATCHEZ — State elected officials who toured Adams County Wednesday said the damage here was unlike anything they’d seen in other parts of the state.

In a tour of Southwest Mississippi Sen. Roger Wicker and Rep. Sam Mims stopped in Natchez to assess the damage done by Gustav.

Wicker said based on his other stops in the state he believed Natchez to be unique in the amount of downed trees and utility poles.

“We didn’t see that on the coast,” he said.

He said the damage to trees and utility poles looked like “more than any other place in the state.”

Natchez Mayor Jake Middleton and Adams County Board of Supervisors President Henry Watts accompanied Mims and Wicker on their tour.

Before the tour began Mims and Wicker met in the mayor’s office, with several city and county officials, to answer general questions about what necessary steps should be taken to get Natchez back to normal.

Much of the discussion centered on debris removal and the acquisition of state and federal funding available to the county and city.

“We want to be able to report to the state on the damage the county has seen,” Mims said.

Mims said the information given to the state could then be relayed to federal agencies.

And Middleton said he hopes Wicker and Mims’ awareness of the situation in the county will help local officials be able to cut through the red tape of acquiring federal clean-up money.

“It was an important meeting,” he said.

A portion of the tour had to be rerouted due to a large downed tree that blocked the road near the Roselawn Subdivision.

Shortly after the detour the four men had an impromptu meeting with Entergy executives in a parking lot on Liberty Road.

Haley Fisackerly, president and CEO of Entergy Mississippi, briefed the Wicker and Mims on the state of electricity restoration in the area.