ATHENS — Residents of north Alabama went to bed Wednesday night under tornado and/or severe thunderstorm warnings.
This morning, they woke up to a tornado watch, damaged homes and trees and thousands without electricity.
The National Weather Service Huntsville office issued a tornado watch for all of north Alabama until 10 a.m. The office said there could be additional storms between from 8-10 a.m., “but the severe threat is slowly diminishing across our area.”
The office said isolated instances of flash flooding are possible this morning.
“Precipitation estimates from radar indicate swaths of heavier rainfall across portions of northern Alabama and southern Middle Tennessee,” the forecasters said. “These swaths have received 3 to 4 inches of rain.”
The weather has also affected school schedules today. Some schools are delaying opening and others have cancelled classes.
The office also reported the radar at Hytop is out of service. Technicians have been notified and will be addressing the issue as soon as possible, the office said. Radar sites in Birmingham; Nashville; Columbus, Miss.; and Peachtree City, Ga., will be providing coverage.
A series of severe storms crossed the area, downing trees and power lines while leaving debris scattered. The storms brought high winds, heavy rains, hail and tornadoes.
At 6:35 this morning, Huntsville Utilities reported 6,462 customers without power in Madison, Huntsville and Madison County (approximately 3% of all Huntsville Utilities electric customers), down from 10,279.
Athens Utilities reported 201 customers, down from 2,000, scattered over eight outages, were without power.
“We have power outages reported in western Limestone County between U.S. 72 and Buck Island,” said Holly Holman with the city of Athens.
During its coverage of the storms, the staff at WAAY-TV had to seek shelter as a possible tornado passed over the station atop Monte Sano.
Tornadoes were reported on the ground Tuesday night near Scottsboro and in Limestone County. Crews from the National Weather Service will be spread throughout the area today assessing the damage.
The City of Huntsville’s Public Works Department and first responders are working to clear debris.
Most of the damage is confined to downtown Huntsville and the Five Points, Blossomwood and Old Town neighborhoods, including Clinton and Hermitage avenues and California Street. Trees are down in North Huntsville in the areas of Oakwood Avenue and Pulaski Pike. Damage is also being reported in Hampton Cove.
Roads inside Maple Hill Cemetery are impassable and the gates will be closed today while staff assess and clean up debris.
Public Works Director Chris McNeese is asking drivers to avoid affected areas.
“Intersections without power should be treated as four-way stops,” he said. “Please use caution in areas where Public Works crews and first responders are present.”
Outages are widespread, and every available Electric Operations crew is in the field, working to restore service throughout all of Madison County, Huntsville Utilities said.
“Though daylight will make restoration conditions easier, crews are still dealing with a weather system in the area,” a spokesman said. “While power in some of the original outage areas has been restored, new outages have occurred as a new storm system moves through.”
Anyone who is without service and has not reported it should do so by calling 256-53-LIGHT (256-535-4448).
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