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Tarzi said the agency has a number of safeguards set up to warn people of oncoming weather including a reverse 911 system and a CableCom message system.
With reverse 911, Tarzi said he can send a warning to the entire county or small specific areas with landline phone calls.
"With the system, you can probably call 3,000 to 4,000 people a minute on a hard line," he said, noting calls to cell phones were a little trickier. "You could probably reach the entire county within 10 minutes."
Tarzi said he has already tested the systems in Jonestown and other small towns with a bigger test upcoming for the Clarksdale area.
Tarzi said the most important thing for impending disasters is to be prepared.
"Every month, we have a meeting at the hospital with members of the police, fire and health departments," he said. "We discuss what to do if a disaster hits locally.
"We were actually planning a drill at the hospital when Katrina hit," Tarzi said. "That has been moved to February so you may hear sirens around town then."
Tarzi went immediately to Jackson following Hurricane Katrina, helping the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency man the phones.
"There were just horror stories you won't believe," he said. "For instance, I received a call from a lady in Indiana whose mother was bedridden in Gulfport. The nurses had left her down there."
Tarzi described the destruction he saw on the coast as simply chaos.
"The T.V. just doesn't do it justice," he said. "If you haven't been to the coast, Highway 90 from the beach back to the railroad track is just gone. Barges and ships are 400 yards away from the water. Tile has been ripped off of concrete floors."
While earthquakes would pose a serious problem, Tarzi said the area a the higher probability for tornadoes.
"Everyone says an earthquake is going to happen," he said. "They just can't tell you when and where. But, tornadoes are the number one natural disaster here."
