Severe weather · Outages · Who to call
Read this on a clear day.
Storm warnings, power and gas, flooding, and the numbers that actually get answered. Emergencies are always 911.
Read this before a storm, not during one
Columbia has no designated public storm shelter.
We would rather tell you this on a clear day than have you drive to a locked building in a tornado warning.
There is no public storm shelter in Columbia. Not at City Hall, not at the Expo Center, not at a school. Buildings that have opened during past storms did so as a one-off, by the decision of whoever owned them, and none of them is on standby waiting for the next warning.
So the plan has to be your own building. When a warning is issued, the guidance from the National Weather Service is the same everywhere: get to the lowest floor, in the most interior room, with as many walls between you and the outside as possible — a bathroom, a closet, an interior hallway. Cover your head. If you live in a mobile home, that is the one case where leaving matters — go to a sturdier building before the warning, not during it.
Decide where that room is now, while nothing is happening. That decision takes two minutes today and cannot be made in the four minutes you may get later.
If the city designates a public shelter, it will be published on this page.
Getting warned
Three ways to know it is coming.
① Your phone already does this. Wireless Emergency Alerts — tornado warnings, flash flood warnings, AMBER alerts — are switched on by default on every modern phone and cost nothing. They are under Settings → Notifications → Government Alerts on iPhone, or Settings → Safety & emergency on Android. Check that they are on, and do not switch them off because one woke you up.
② The National Weather Service office for Columbia is NWS Jackson. Marion County forecasts, watches and warnings all come from there. Their radar and warning map is the same one the television meteorologists are reading.
③ A NOAA weather radio still works when the power is out and the cell network is congested. It is the only one of the three that does not depend on anything else working.
Watch versus warning, because it is the distinction that matters most: a watch means conditions are right for it — get ready. A warning means it is happening or about to — act now.
Outages & leaks
Power, gas and water.
🔥 SMELL GAS? Leave the building first, then call from outside. Do not switch anything on or off — not a light, not a phone, not a car in an attached garage.
Delta Utilities gas emergency — 1-888-876-5786. 24 hours. If you smell gas, call this before you call anyone else. Then 911.
| Number | |
|---|---|
| Electricity out — Mississippi Power | 1-800-487-3275 (24 hours) |
| Gas emergency — Delta Utilities | 1-888-876-5786 (24 hours) |
| Water or sewer — City of Columbia | 601.736.8201 |
| Garbage — City of Columbia | 601.736.8201 |
A downed power line is always an emergency. Assume every fallen line is live, keep everyone and every animal well clear, and call 911 and Mississippi Power — not the city. The city does not own the poles and cannot make a line safe.
Water and sewer are the city's. A main break, no pressure, or sewage backing up: 601.736.8201. Outside office hours that number still routes to somebody.
High water
Flooding and the Pearl.
Columbia sits on the Pearl River, and the low-lying parts of the county flood. Most flood deaths are not people caught in their homes — they are people who drove into water.
Turn around, don't drown. A foot of moving water will float most cars. Two feet will carry away almost anything, including a pickup. You cannot tell how deep it is, whether the road is still under it, or which way the current runs, and at night you cannot see any of it. No trip is worth it.
Never drive around a barricade. It is there because somebody already checked.
River levels for the Pearl and its gauges are published by the National Weather Service at water.noaa.gov — the same data emergency managers watch.
Flood insurance is not part of homeowner's insurance, and there is a waiting period before a new policy takes effect. That makes it a thing to sort out in a quiet month, not when a storm is named.
Who to call
The numbers, in order.
Life, fire, crime in progress, injury — 911. Always, and without hesitating about whether it qualifies.
| Who | Number | For |
|---|---|---|
| Emergency | 911 | Anything happening right now |
| Civil Defense — Courthouse Square | 601.736.9627 | Storm and emergency preparedness |
| Columbia Police — non-emergency | 601.736.8204, then press 0 for dispatch | Inside the city limits |
| Marion County Sheriff | 601-736-5051 · after hours 601-731-3780 | Outside the city limits |
| City Hall | 601.736.8201 | Water, sewer, streets, anything city |
Reporting something that is not an emergency? Call 601.736.8204 and press 0 for dispatch — suspicious behavior, noise late at night, cars racing, a cat up a tree. That is what dispatch is for. Anything where somebody could get hurt is 911.
Not sure whether it is the city or the county? Call City Hall and ask. If it is not ours we will tell you whose it is, which is faster than working it out from four websites. Who to Call has the longer list.
Statewide, the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency publishes preparedness guidance and disaster declarations at msema.org.
One quiet afternoon
The list that makes the difference.
A week of water and medication, a charged battery pack, a NOAA radio, copies of your documents somewhere dry, and a decided-on room. None of it can be assembled once the warning sounds.