Alabama Power crews work to restore outages following stormy weather
Alabama Power crews work to restore outages after storm damage in Reform. Crews joined restoration efforts from other states including Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Tennessee and as far away as Oklahoma. (David Bailey/Alabama NewsCenter)
Nearly 150,000 Alabama Power customers were impacted by two nights of severe storms that raced across the state.
Alabama Power employees, assisted by crews from several states, restored power to most customers in a matter of hours. In isolated cases, restoration efforts have taken a little longer.
As of late afternoon Wednesday, crews were completing the last of the power restorations.
The first wave of severe weather rolled through Monday evening, bringing periods of heavy rainfall. Before the storm arrived, the state was subjected to hours of significant, sustained, straight-line winds that caused scattered outages across the system. A second wave rolled through Tuesday night and into Wednesday morning, spawning a few tornadoes. Nearly all customers impacted by the first line of storms had power restored before the second wave hit.
Alabama Power was assisted by crews from several other states including Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Tennessee, Louisiana, North Carolina, South Carolina and Oklahoma. The extra manpower allowed Alabama Power to have crews on standby to restore additional power outages from the two-day storm event.
The storms turned deadly when a tornado killed at least three people in northeastern Alabama. Several others were critically injured in other severe weather episodes.
The storm system is expected to exit the state by late afternoon Wednesday.
