Hartselle sustains wind damage

Wind damage at Spanish Trace Apartments

Wind gusts at speeds reaching 60 miles per hour caused minor damage to a six-unit apartment building at Spanish Trace Apartments and two outdoor storage buildings at 201 Wheeler Street and temporarily disrupted electric service in Hartselle last night.
A spokesperson at Spanish Trace said wind ripped shingles and decking from an apartment building on the east side of the complex at about midnight. However, tarps were put down and the occupants didn’t have to leave. There was no visible damage to several other buildings.
“I’m awaiting the arrival of an insurance adjuster from Scottsboro and we have a roofing company standing by to go to work,” she said.
At about the same time, 300 yards to the east, a dead tree broke and fell on the roofs of two backyard storage buildings, causing considerable damage.
Hartselle Utilities linemen were on duty throughout the night repairing broken electric services, some of which resulted from falling tree limbs and others from the wind itself. A transformer was knocked out at the NAPA Parts store on Highway 31, south, and several resident lost power due to broken limbs hitting power lines,
A HU spokesperson said all outages should be repaired before the end of the day.
“We had a three-man crew working through the night to remove tree limbs from streets,” said Public Works Superintendent Byron Turney, “but we came through it better than I thought we would.”
Johnny Cantrell, operations office with the Morgan County EMA, said the only damage report his office had received at 8 a.m. was windows blown out of a mobile home in the Massey Community. He said reports from the U.S. Weather Service placed wind gusts in the storm front at 50 to 60 mph.