NATCHEZ &045;&045; Tornadoes have killed 404 people in Mississippi since 1950.

But as part of Severe Weather Awareness Week &045;&045; held all this week &045;&045; county and school officials are taking steps to make sure this area doesn’t become part of that a statistic.

This week kicks off the state’s tornado season, which will continue until the end of April.

The Natchez-Adams County Emergency Management Agency will test all outdoor sirens, the cable alert and the all-call alert system on Friday.

The test was scheduled for Wednesday, but bad weather across the state delayed the drill.

During the test, sirens will sound for three minutes and all schools, businesses and hospitals are encouraged to practice severe weather drills, said George Souderes, emergency management director.

Several schools have started educating students on the process.

&uot;The students need to know and the teachers need to know that the students have been through the process before,&uot; Robert Lewis Middle School Principal Cynthia Smith said.

&uot;The more prepared you are, and the more proactive you are, the better prepared you are going to be in the real situation.&uot;

In addition to daily drills, students at West Primary School are reading books on weather and graphing the day’s weather on a calendar. The students also did a bus safety drill, Principal Cindy Idom said.

While it has fewer tornadoes than several other states, Mississippi tends to have a higher percentage of strong or violent tornadoes, according to the National Weather Service in Jackson.

Tornadoes are also harder to spot in Mississippi than they are on the plains, and number of times each tornado hits can contribute to the number of deaths, said NWS forecaster Doug Butts.

In addition, he said, &uot;most of our tornadoes are going to be during the afternoon to early evening hours because that is the peek heating and most unstable air mass.

&uot;But we also get a good number of tornadoes right before sunrise, and that may be another contributing factor to the average number of fatalities. Most people are still in bed,&uot; he said.

But severe weather isn’t limited to tornadoes.

Flooding is the No. 1 national weather-related killer, while lightning is No. 2.

&uot;Two feet of water will float any vehicle, even an SUV,&uot; Butts said. &uot;And six inches of water will knock down an averaged sized person.&uot;