The sunrise this morning revealed the extent of the damage from Monday night’s tornadoes and thunderstorms.
Gov. Kay Ivey issued a state of emergency effective at 8 a.m. today for all Alabama counties following the severe weather outbreak that began Monday.
Tornadoes, storms bring widespread damage to parts of Alabama from Alabama NewsCenter on Vimeo.
By issuing a state of emergency, the governor directed activation of the Alabama Emergency Operations Plan to aid in the affected areas. The Alabama Emergency Management Agency’s State Emergency Operations Center is activated, as well as all affected or potentially affected Alabama Emergency Management divisions. The declaration also allows the appropriate state agencies and AEMA to offer help.
Homes, businesses and portions of the Jacksonville State University were among those receiving storm damage in east Alabama. Large hail damaged cars and homes in Cullman and other parts of north Alabama.
The storms took a toll on electric utility infrastructure – snapping poles and bringing trees down on power lines, even toppling a large transmission line west of Jacksonville.
Alabama Power crews have been assessing and working diligently and safely to restore the approximately 10,300 outages that remained at 11 a.m, mostly in east Alabama. At the height of the storms, more than 24,500 Alabama Power customers lost power in the state.
Most of the remaining outages are in or near Jacksonville, Southside and Heflin.
The company said in some areas, infrastructure must be rebuilt, which could lead to longer restoration times.
Alabama Power said this morning 1,637 Power Delivery restoration experts are being deployed to the affected areas to aid in storm restoration.
Alabama Power said it is still evaluating other locations and waiting on other places to be made accessible.
Alabama Power reminded everyone to avoid downed power lines or equipment and to notify them of downed lines at 1-800-888-2726. That number can be used to report outages, which can also be reported through the Alabama Power smartphone app or through alabamapower.com.
Stay tuned to Alabama NewsCenter for more updates throughout the day.
