Limestone resident took cover in closet; many in county lost power

Erica Smith, The Decatur Daily, Ala.
·3 min read

Jan. 13—When trees and power lines started falling during strong winds Thursday morning, John Evans thought it was a tornado and hunkered down in a closet in the middle of his house in Decatur-annexed Limestone County.

"My girlfriend and I were up in the bedroom, and we were looking outside at the weather. Then all of a sudden the wind started and the rain was coming down and we started hearing debris hitting the side of the house," Evans said. "The power went out and we started hearing cracking from trees coming down. ... We thought it was a tornado."

Evans' gut feeling matched a National Weather Service assessment that a "likely" EF1 tornado hit the area during thunderstorms Thursday morning. Winds from the storms caused tree limbs in Evans' neighbor's yard to break off the trunk, demolish about 20 feet of his wooden privacy fence and cover his driveway. Evans said it happened at 8:37 a.m.

Evans lives on Hunter Lane just south of Calhoun Community College. Evans said about a 60-foot-tall pine tree came down behind his house, taking down a utility pole and two of his sheds.

"We don't have a tornado shelter, but our neighbor has a basement so we were going to go over to his house," Evans said. "We went to go out the front door and looked outside and no way, we're not going outside. So, we just huddled up in a closet in the middle of the house."

Evans said a cleanup crew that he thought was affiliated with Athens Utilities came within about an hour and cut up the felled trees.

The Limestone County Emergency Management Agency reported Thursday morning that there were power lines down around Humphrey Road and Mooresville Road. Athens Utilities reported Thursday morning that storm-related damage impacted customers serviced by French's Mill and Belle Mina substation. Other substations were experiencing issues as well, AU said.

At 9:18 a.m. Thursday, AU reported 4,300 customers without power in the southeast portion of the county. By 3 p.m., the number of outages had been reduced to 100 customers. AU reported they were replacing broken utility poles south of Calhoun and when that work was completed most of the remaining outages should have power restored.

"We still have some cleanup to take care of Friday," Athens Electric Department Manager Blair Davis said.

Trent Simon, Limestone County emergency management officer, said the most common reports they had were trees down in roadways. By 3 p.m. Thursday he said most of those roadways had been cleared. Simon said there was a reported tree down at the Calhoun campus, and a store nearby suffered roof damage.

The Pryor Field Airport Authority reported that there was no damage at the airport. However, they reported a few limbs down on the south side of the airport and the main windsock was missing.

—erica.smith@decaturdaily.com or 256-340-2460.