Published: May 08, 2008 11:45 am            

Storms cause damage in Cullman County

Severe thunderstorms swept through Cullman County Thursday, causing widespread damage from Good Hope and Crane Hill to Arab and Baileyton.

“Right now, we’re seeing a lot of structural damage on the southwest side,” Cullman County Emergency Management Agency Director Phyllis Little said. “There was a lot (of damage) around the lake, near Speegle Marina, and along Cherokee Avenue in Cullman. Out on Highway 278 East, several homes have roof damage, power poles have snapped and one home has a tree through it.”

Though damage from Thursday’s storm was more widespread — affecting communities across the county — Little said emergency response was more organized and efficient than during the April 4 storm which caused extensive damage in downtown Cullman.

“As far as response, at EOC (emergency operations center) everything was great,” she said. “There were several people from the city police department there, we were in contact with Rick Henry (city street department superintendent), and the Red Cross is here. Immediately after the weather cleared enough, the Red Cross was going out and checking on folks whose homes were damaged. I went out to check on some homes damaged around the lake, and the rescue squad was out checking residences as they passed from storm spotting. We just had a really good response. ... It was more organized simply because April 4 was so soon and so fresh in our minds.”

Little said she had heard there were some minor injuries, including a child in Hanceville who had injuries from a tree falling on a home, but none were confirmed.

“I did not hear of anybody who had to be transported to the hospital,” she said.

The National Weather Service issued severe weather warnings for most of the state Thursday morning, placing Cullman County under a tornado watch early in the day.

By 2:30 p.m., strong rain began falling on the area with a storm bringing loud and damaging winds.

Miriam Mitchell, 25, was at the Cobblestone Masonry office on Swafford Road when the storm came. “We just got under the desks when we heard it coming,” she said.

“We were just sitting here when the alarms went off,” said Vickie Daniel, who was also at the office. “We looked out the window and the tree tops were spinning, then we heard a loud boom when the trees hit the roof.”

The National Weather Service announced Thursday evening it had received unconfirmed local reports that straight-line winds caused the majority of the damage. Little said the NWS will send a crew to Cullman on Friday morning to survey the damage and determine an official cause.

“The weather service is coming in tomorrow to do assessments and checks,” she said. “We’ve got state EMA here making reports to the state office, so the governor is aware of what’s going on.”

The county EMA turned on sirens county-wide when the weather service issued a tornado warning for the county. However, Little said there were sirens down in four communities which the agency is working to repair.

“We’ve got sirens down in Logan, Arkadephia and Welti, and we notified the communities of that,” Little said. “The sirens are an ongoing project. Our newest siren to go online was St. Joseph Street in downtown Cullman, and it worked wonderfully.”

At 4 p.m., nearly 6,500 Cullman Electric Co-op members were without power and 2,000 Cullman Power Board customers were in the dark.

“There were lots of trees on the lines and lots of snapped poles,” co-op spokesman Brian Lacy said. “There were some pretty heavy straight-line winds.”

Lacy said the company sent out all its crews to repair damaged lines and will continue to work throughout the evening and morning if necessary to restore power.

“We’re going slow and steady right now,” he said. “Damage was spread out all across our service area, from Arley and the far southwest up to Fairview in the northeast.”

By 6 p.m., the number of county co-op members without power was reduced to 3,600.

Power was out around downtown Cullman, resulting in traffic confusion and from signals which were not functioning. Cullman Power Board Manager Mike Manning said the Cullman Industrial Park I was without power for 45 minutes, but the park, as well as most outages around Cullman, were quickly fixed.

“Almost everybody is restored,” he said. “The water plant is running and the industrial park is back up. We still have a few remaining isolated areas out, and a few minor scattered trees down but, for the most part, everyone is back up.”

Cullman city and county schools responded to the threat of severe weather by letting students go home early. County schools dismissed at 11 a.m. while city schools released students at noon.

“This is the procedure we follow every single time there is a threat of severe weather,” Cullman City Superintendent Dr. Jan Harris said. “It begins with meeting with the Emergency Management Agency, and this morning our safety coordinator attended that meeting. At that time we learned of a threat for severe weather this afternoon and made the decision regarding school (closings) because the threat was between the hours of 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. We did not want children to be dismissed from school in the middle of tornadoes. We wanted to get all the children dismissed and on buses so the buses could travel their routes safely.”

Both Harris and county Superintendent Hank Allen said schools were dismissed with no problems and neither system had any reports of interference.

“As far as we know, everything went smoothly. The roads are fine and everything is running really well,” Allen said.

Both systems activated their emergency call programs, which alerted parents of the early dismissal via automated telephone calls.

Harris said all afternoon and after-school activities for city schools were canceled, and Allen said all county school activities scheduled for the remainder of the day were canceled because of the weather.

Kenneth Kilgo, executive director of the Cullman County American Red Cross, said the organization is assisting seven families who were temporarily displaced because of storm damage.

“It’s been kind of crazy,” he said. “Right now we have seven families we are putting in Hanceville Inn and Suites. Three of them were mothers with small children and two were by themselves with no one there, and they will be out of power until at least tomorrow night. We’ve got three more families down there in Hanceville Inn and Suites who we will be providing with more support because they had severe damage to their homes, holes in the roof and messed up cars.”

Kilgo said the agency is still working to assess damage, and as of Thursday evening he was still not certain about the extent of need in the county.

“I know we always need money, especially when storms like this hit,” he said. “We use the disaster relief fund to provide support. ... The best way people can helps us is by giving money.”

Kilgo said monetary donations allows the organization to give debit cards to families impacted by the storm so they may purchase groceries, clothing and medicine.

        

• Click to discuss this story with other readers on our forums.