Petal School District Recovering After Tornado
The tornado from January 21, 2017 had a major effect on the Petal, MS community.
The EF-3 storm tore through the area damaging a total of 350 Petal homes and many businesses.
Petal Upper Elementary alone received more than $1.3 million in damage.
“That one school alone had extensive damage, roof and water damage ... , a lot of our technology and a host of other things suffered damage,” Petal Superintendent Dr. Matthew L. Dillon said.
In the meantime, over 600 students, faculty and staff from Petal Elementary are continuing classes at Petal Harvey Church.
"We were able to call the preacher Brother Dusty over there and he was very gracious to open his doors and show us all the areas from there. I felt very good that we had a good game plan in place," Dillon said.
Dillon who's a former resident of Saucier and teacher at West Wortham and Saucier elementary schools says its amazing to see the community come together as a team.
Businesses within the area are also lending a helping hand.
Corner Market in Petal is working alongside the Petal Children's Task Force to help everyone who's in need.
Store Director, Chad Flowers says they reached out to who they thought could identify those who were affected.
"The Task Force is coming in and shopping, they come in and get the items that they need to fill the food modules for the pantry [things of that nature ] and the people that are in need go through the Petal Children’s Task Force to get the items.”
Dr. Dillion says he believes that getting back to school provides everyone with a "sense of normalcy."
"It also allowed us to identify how many students were affected by the storm whether it is a limited damage, minimal and maximum damage as far as complete loss,"Dillon said.
Petal Upper Elementary is estimated to be back in to normal in time for state testing in April.
If you would like to donate to Petal School District's recovery, the following link is to their GoFundMe page.
https://www.gofundme.com/petal-studentstaff-tornado-relief