Storms cause widespread damage, outages

Published 1:51 pm Sunday, June 19, 2011

Powerful winds that reached 75 mph and lashing rain battered the Northwest Georgia region late Saturday afternoon and left thousands without power in Whitfield and Murray counties, authorities said. But no injuries were reported.

“The National Weather Service has confirmed that we had straight-line wind shears that reached between 65 and 75 miles an hour,” said Claude Craig, director of Whitfield Emergency Management. “We had trees down everywhere, but the Westside area and Cleveland Highway were the hardest hit.”

He mentioned that communities in the Cottonwood Mill Road, Dogwood Valley Road and Mount Vernon Road in the Tunnel Hill-Westside area were particularly affected with hundreds of downed trees, “blown” transformers as trees and limbs hit power lines, and damages to residences and vehicles.

 “I’ve checked with 911 and EMS and they have reported no injures,” Craig said.

 In Murray County, 911 spokeswoman Jennifer Clayton said there were widespread damages to homes and vehicles and also power outages throughout the county. She said the south end of the county seemed to take the brunt of the storm, but no injuries reported.

 Jeff Rancudo with North Georgia Electric Membership Corp. said “severe thunderstorms knocked down trees, caused widespread damage and left approximately 20,000 customers without power around NGEMC’s seven-county service area (Whitfield, Murray, Floyd, Catoosa, Chattooga, Gordon and Walker).”

 “NGEMC crews are working to restore power to all customers as quickly and safely as possible,” he said. “Due to the severity and the extent of the damage, NGEMC officials estimate some customers may not be restored for up to 24 hours. Crews will continue to work around the clock to restore power in all the affected areas until all customers’ service is restored.”

 Craig said power was knocked out from the Westside area “all the way to LaFayette” as a result of the storms that entered Whitfield County around 4:30 p.m. and then raked Dalton, leaving some restaurants along Walnut Avenue without power and others filled to capacity and running out of food as Murray County residents drove west looking for a place to eat.

Hamilton Medical Center had power restored around 8:30 p.m., Craig said.

Rancudo reminded residents about the danger of downed power lines.

“Please stay away from downed lines and report them immediately to North Georgia EMC, your local power company or call 911,” he said. “If your power is out, please call our offices to reach our 24-hour dispatch. During widespread outages, phone lines may be unavailable due to extremely high call volume.”