Sent by Teanna Cannon on Armstrong Road in Cedar Bluff

The remnants of Hurricane Irma, having already been downgraded to Tropical Storm status – consisting of very heavy rainfall and high winds – still managed to leave thousands across the state, primarily in the eastern portion of Alabama, without power overnight.

Cherokee County residents experienced power outages in several locations however, things certainly could’ve been worse.  WEIS Radio spoke with Sarah Bright from Cherokee Electric early Tuesday morning and she informed us that at the peak of the storm surge, just around 350 customers were without service with outages occurring in the Tenalla, Sardis, Tucker’s Chapel, Pruitt’s, Calhoun, Leesburg and Blanche areas, in addition to several other isolated locations.

Bright says there are probably fewer than 20 households left without service, mainly in the area of Blanche, and power there should hopefully be restored by around 10:00am. 

She added that being proactive helped a great deal.  Cherokee Electric Co op has instituted a program of trimming back the limbs close to power lines and it paid off during this storm, as fewer problems came from limbs causing damage to the lines. 

There was a large number of trees brought down by a combination of saturated ground and high winds, some bringing down power lines, others simply blocking roadways on County Roads 95 and 15, on County Road 70 in Sand Rock, Highway 68 west going up the mountain and several locations along Highway 35 among others.

Surrounding counties experienced the same situation, including Etowah and Calhoun and across the state line in Georgia, in Chattooga and Floyd counties:

We do urge you to drive with caution especially on lesser traveled roads because there may still be large limbs down in some of those areas, and there could still be considerable water across the roadways.  Cherokee County had 2.3 inches of rainfall over the past 24 hours.

The National Weather Service did issue a Wind Advisory which was in effect until 4:00am and that has now expired, so at this point all watches and warnings associated with Irma locally are officially over.  Irma is now officially at a post-Tropical Storm level.

At this point we’re unsure of how much property damage we may have had in the county; fortunately, we’ve had no reports of anyone being injured during the storms.