LAUREL, Miss. ( WHLT ) – The Pine Belt was spared from heavy flooding as Francine moved over the area as a tropical storm, but there were thousands of customers without power.

Crews worked on Thursday to clean up the damage left behind by the storm. Officials with Dixie Electric said at one point after the storm, there were more than 4,300 customers in the Pine Belt without power. Most of the outages were in Jones County.

“It’s mostly just been the wind and the wind gusts. You know, the wind can be between 20, 25 miles an hour and wind gusts up to 40 or 50. You’re going to lose tree limbs. Sometimes the tree gives way, that type of thing. So, it’s just those extra gusts is what’s caused most of the outages,” said Randy Smith, general manager of Dixie Electric.

Dixie Electric crews were on standby throughout the storm and were ready to respond.

“We do bring them in when the winds start to get up around 35, 40 miles an hour. But other than that, they’re out in it. They’re risking, basically, lots of things. Trees can fall. They’re taught to work safely. But, you know, there are always things that can happen. So, they put themselves in hard harm’s way a lot,” said Smith.

The company hopes to have all power restored no later than Friday morning.

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