City escapes brunt of storm
Other than a power outage caused by a bolt of lightning, the city of Hartselle escaped from a menacing storm front that swept through Morgan County and North Alabama Monday evening.
The Decatur area was not as fortunate. Straight-line wind gusts estimated at 50 to 60 mph damaged a church roof and toppled trees in several locations. The result was multiple power outages and several hours of cleanup work, removing trees and tree limbs from streets. Fortunately, no injuries were reported.
Jonathan Hampton, Hartselle Utilities Electric Department superintendent, said only one outage occurred during the storm. It resulted from a lightning strike that knocked out a transformer at South Sparkman and Pearl Streets.
Hartselle Mayor Dwight Tankersley said Hartselle Public Works personnel were on standby but were never called out.
Unofficially, the amount of rain that fell from 4 to 9 p.m. was 1.85 inches. Some pea-size hail was also reported.
The roof of Emanuel Church in Decatur was damaged by straight-line winds at approximately 4 p.m. while the northern part of Morgan County was under a tornado warning, according to Eddie Hicks, director of the Morgan County Emergency Management Agency. Sections of the roof fell in the parking lot of Westgate Shopping Center.
“We received reports of trees and power poles being down in at least a dozen different locations in the city,” said Hicks. There was a tree down on 6th avenue at Johnston Street and another down on 4th Ave. at Cook’s Pest Control.”
Hail the size of dimes and nickels fell and rainfall from 3:30 to 8 p.m. totaled 1.65 inches at Pryor Field.
Jeff Clark, District I commissioner, said he had crews out removing trees from roadways and doing other cleanup work for several hours.
“We had a lot of help from the Flint Volunteer Fire Department,” he said.
“We tracked the storm front across Mississippi and northwest Alabama,” Hicks said. “It had the potential of being very destructive and we were very concerned. Luckily, it missed us for the most part.”
