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June 17, 2009

Storms knock out power, again

By Trent Moore

Yet another round of storms blasted through Cullman Monday night, the third time since this weekend power has been knocked out and trees downed around the county.

“We’ve just had a series of upper-level disturbances move across the Tennessee valley,” National Weather Service forecaster Dana Griffin said of the rash of storms.

Cullman EMA Director Phyllis Little said her office received scattered reports of fallen trees, though no significant structural damage was reported within the county.

Downed trees were reported in Fairview, Baileyton and near southwest Arab, according to the NWS. Penny-size hail was also reported in scattered parts on the county.

“When you see that kind of damage, it’s indicative of 60-70 mile-per hour winds,” Griffin said. “When there are numerous trees down, it takes some pretty powerful wind to do that.”

Nearly 5,000 Cullman county residents lost power at some point Monday night, as trees and limbs were blown onto power lines.

“Due to severe thunderstorms, we had about 4,800 lights go out from wind damage,” Cullman Electric Cooperative representative Melissa Cartee said. “That was at the height of the storm.”

Cullman Power Board Manager Mike Manning said approximately 500-600 city residents also lost power late Monday night due to the storms.

“Those customers were without power for about an hour and a half, mostly around the southeast side of our service area,” he said. “Almost all of it was repaired very quickly.”

All outages were on schedule to be repaired by press time.

No injuries have been reported from any of the recent storms.



‰ Trent Moore can be reached by e-mail at trentm@cullmantimes.com, or by telephone at 734-2131, ext. 225.

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