Strong storms stretching from Wednesday evening until after midnight resulted in at least one person being hurt in Alabama, according to University of Montevallo Police.  There has been no additional information released regarding that incident as of yet.

Locally, we’ve had no reports of any injuries however as far as property damage goes an awning at Tab’s Storage in Centre was toppled by high winds.  There were numerous reports of trees being downed, due to the extremely high wind speeds and saturated ground.  Motorists should exercise caution and watch for limbs and water across roadways as well, especially on backroads.  Etowah County reports essentially the same – a rash of trees being toppled by high winds – we received word that the pier at Hokes Bluff was destroyed by the storms, and DeKalb County reports much the same situation with some roof damage in the Skirum community.

As of 5:00am Thursday – approximately 32,000 Alabama Power customers were still without power.  Cherokee County was placed under a tornado watch at 11:27pm; that watch was then cancelled at 2:50am.   All county storm shelters were open throughout the severe weather outbreak.  Straight-line winds led to a large number of power outages across the state overnight as well.  Additional damage reports will be collected throughout the day today.