NATCHEZ — High winds — likely more than 70 mph — toppled trees, tore off roofs and left much of the Miss-Lou in darkness Sunday.

The storm hit Concordia Parish at approximately 9:30 a.m. and moved into Adams County by 9:45. Ten to 15 minutes later it was over.

The National Weather Service’s equipment in Adams County stopped functioning at 9:30 a.m., Meteorologist Ed Agre said, so exact wind speeds aren’t known.

“We were calling for 70 mph winds,” he said. “Hattiesburg got 61 mph winds, so it must have started out quite a bit higher than that.”

Initially 12,000 of Entergy’s approximately 18,000 Southwest Mississippi customers were without power, Customer Service Manager Stephen Caruthers said.

But by 6 p.m. only 8,000 customers remained in the dark. That number included the entire town of Fayette, where a transmission line was downed.

Of the 8,000, Caruthers was hopeful 2,000 more would regain power before Sunday night ended.

Other Entergy customers were expected to be without power into today and possibly Tuesday, he said.

“Our goal is to hit this hard the rest of the day and hit it hard (Monday),” he said. “We’ve got folks who have arrived (to help) and we have a significant number of crews coming (Monday).”

Trees and tree limbs falling on power lines caused most of the Adams County outages, Caruthers said. Approximately 20 power poles were also broken due to the trees and winds.

Areas with the most damage to power lines included: U.S. 61 North in the Morgantown area, Liberty Road, Duncan Park, Melrose-Montebello subdivision, John R. Junkin Drive near the Natchez Mall and Homochitto Street.

Southwest Mississippi Electric Power Association customers were also without power much of the day.

Adams County Emergency Management Director Stan Owens said at least 41 structures had some kind of damage. Of those, 15 residences had major damage or were destroyed, he said.

Seven or eight businesses had significant damage, including the Adams County Port, Fred’s Nursery, Rivergate Bowl, the Briars and the Canal Depot.

“It’s really all over,” Owens said. “It’s really scattered around.”

The damage report was much of the same in Concordia Parish, Emergency Management Director Morris White said.

Portions of Vidalia and Ferriday lost power when the storm hit, but had regained it by nightfall.

White said a tornado reportedly touched down in Sicily Island in Catahoula Parish, but strong winds also damaged Concordia Parish.

“I personally don’t think we had a tornado,” White said. “It was just (damage) all over.”

Both the parish and Adams County saw small hail and heavy rainfall as well. Neither area was reporting injuries from the storm.

Agre said the National Weather Service would be sending a crew to the area today to inspect damage and better determine the cause.

“It looked like a pretty well organized squall line that came through,” he said.

The storm continued to move eastward across the state but did not produce any tornados that touched down, Agre said.