Cullman dodges storm

By Brittany Woodby

Though Cullman County remained under a tornado watch for most of Friday, storms passed through the area without leaving much damage.

“We did not have any significant damage reported,” Cullman County Emergency Management Agency Assistant Director Kelly Allen said. “It wasn’t like last Friday, so our operations weren’t quite like they were last week because we didn’t have to set up an incident command.”

Instead, Allen said he and city and county officials monitored the weather situation from the EMA office, where Allen maintained radio contact with storm spotters in locations throughout the county.

Though the National Weather Service predicted Thursday that severe thunderstorms would come through the county early Friday morning, the first storm front actually rolled through Cullman around noon. Both city and county schools decided to release students early to prevent buses from being on the roads during severe weather.

Administrators at West Point Schools and Harmony School were in the process of letting students out to go home when a tornado warning was issued for West Point.

“We got caught in the path of the storm,” West Point High School Principal Darrell Brock said. “The buses were pulling out when the warning was issued and they had to pull back in and unload. That was about 1:10 p.m.”

Brock said students were taken off the buses and divided among the schools to seek shelter until the warning expired. Students were permitted to leave with parents if they were personally signed out, but Brock said several students and parents sought shelter in the high school’s basement.

“We advised them there was a warning out and that they would be safer if they stayed in our basement,” Brock said. “Several parents stayed with us.”

Brock said he was unaware of any damage to the buildings due to the storm.

Though the National Weather Service has not yet confirmed a tornado touched down in Cullman County, Brock said a teacher and some students claimed to have seen a funnel cloud passing by the school.

Less than an hour after the first tornado warning expired for Cullman County, two more storm fronts were spotted moving from Winston County and Walker County and heading towards Cullman.

Allen said the National Weather Service issued two separate tornado warnings for the county — one for the southern section including Hanceville and Good Hope and one for the northern part including the towns of Vinemont and Jones Chapel.

“Some people called to complain about hearing sirens go off when they didn’t even see rain,” Allen said. “But from 2:15 p.m. to 3:15 p.m., Cullman County was under two separate tornado warnings.”

Allen said it was imperative to activate all the alarms in the county in order to give everyone adequate time to seek shelter in the event the storms shift slightly off their paths and cross unexpected areas.

The second wave of storms, though more unstable, still did not produce any damage comparable to what Cullman experienced last week.

“There was a report of a roof blown off in Vinemont and some trees down on power lines,” Allen said. “There was some debris strewn across County Road 222.”

At one point, 1,100 county residents were without power. By 7 p.m., only 400 residents were still without electricity and Allen said power was to be restored to those residents within the next few hours.

Mike Manning, Cullman Power Board manager, said the city saw minimal interruption in power service with only one tree down around 2 p.m.

By 6 p.m., the weather service had canceled the tornado watch over Cullman County.

“They let us out for the remainder of the night and that should be it, other than a cold front coming in,” Allen said.

Though Friday’s storm system did not require the amount of emergency response last week’s storm did, Allen said authorities responded well to the potential weather threat and resolved some of the problems teams discussed following the last storm.

“Today, we didn’t have the incident, but we saw improvements from our hot wash last week,” he said. “The schools were there this morning (for briefing), the sheriff was there this afternoon. Everyone was there through the decision-making process.”

No reports of injuries from the storm were reported.