Katrina sidesteps Warren County

By DUANE SHERRILL / Staff Reporter for the Southern Standard

Marshall Martin, on roof, passes 3-month-old Christopher Collins to New Orleans Fire and Rescue officer Jonathan Pajeaud while the child’s grandmother, Sheila Martin, waits on a water craft during evacuations in New Orleans. (AP Photo)

Warren County dodged the fury of what may go down as the most devastating storm in U.S. history as the remnants of Hurricane Katrina passed by without incident.

The remains of the storm, which devastated much of Gulf Coast early Monday morning, had her arrival here with tropical storm warnings late Monday and early Tuesday. The storm had weakened but still brought the threat of damaging winds and heavy rain, neither of which materialized here although western Tennessee saw significant rainfall.

Issuing a tropical storm warning here was unusual in itself as meteorologists say all but the largest storms are drained of most of their energy before reaching Tennessee once they are deprived of the warm gulf water. A hurricane has never traveled the 320 miles north from the gulf to reach the Tennessee borders. Katrina held as a tropical storm, packing wind gusts of over 40 mph, only due to her immense Category 4 size at landfall in southern Louisiana.

School officials here were taking no chances as they joined with numerous other Tennessee school systems in opting to call off school Tuesday.

“We talked to emergency management and they were predicting 3 to 6 inches of rain with 40 mph winds so we don’t need to have kids out there on school buses,” said Director of Schools Dr. Jerry Hale when announcing the closing of school. “With a potential hurricane coming through we thought the kids would be better off at home than at school.”

While not living up to her predicted ferocity here, Katrina did bring a threat of spawning tornadoes, which she did on her trek northward, dropping damaging twisters in the suburbs of Atlanta, Ga., and in other counties of northern Georgia.

Fortunately, what would have been considered to be the remnants of Katrina’s eye passed to the west of Warren County, taking with it the lion’s share of precipitation and wind. Warren County did feel some gusts but no real damage, with the top gust reported around 30 mph.

According to the McMinnville Water Plant, there was 3/4 of an inch of rain from Katrina as of noon Tuesday. The most damage in Tennessee was seen in the west as 70,000 people in Memphis were left without power.

“It’s not been anywhere near what we were expecting,” said Tennessee Emergency Management spokesman Randy Harris in reporting TEMA has learned of no major damage in Tennessee.

There will be school in Warren County today.