Storms pound the area

Storms that began just before this past weekend and swept across several counties in southwest Alabama and northwest Florida damaged trees and power lines outages in Century and Jay, leaving residents without power for more than a day as emergency management agencies scrambled to clean up and restore power through as late as Wednesday.

Travis Tompkins, emergency manager for Escambia County (Fla.) said Escambia County and Santa Rosa County, although they were not declared an emergency, were put in the executive order that does free up certain funding for certain organizations. Tompkins added the counties were added to the order because of the damage to the co-op and the vegetative debris.

"On the Florida side, we definitely had some straight line wind damage and quite a bit of vegetative debris," said Tompkins.

Tompkins said road crews went out almost immediately after the winds died down to do 'cut and toss' operations to clear roads and get debris to side of the road.

As late as Wednesday, the crews were still working on a few spots to clear them and the thought power was restored to most by Wednesday.

Tompkins said they are doing assessments on how much vegetative damage occurred, which he said is quite a bit. He said Escambia County Utilities Authority has started to pick up debris on the side of the road. He encourages any private home owners to continue put their debris at the road so it can be picked up.

Escambia River Electric Co-operative had a lot of damage and got power restored Tuesday working through the weekend to get power up and running.

"EREC did have pole damage and they are doing damage assessments on their side," said Tompkins. "There was significantly more damage to the east of us, with three different tornados confirmed from the National Weather Service."

In Santa Rosa County, trees were damaged along Highway 4 in Blackwater River State Forest near Munson almost to Baker Saturday. By Sunday, crews were restoring lines and clearing the roadway of debris.

The entrance to Jay Elementary School had power lines lying on the ground, pulled down by falling trees with trunks and branches broken and fences knocked over.

A news release from the Santa Rosa County Public Information Office Monday stated Indian Ford Road and Petey Lane in Munson as well as Central School Road and Allentown Road, both in Allentown, were impacted by downed trees and power lines and drivers were asked to seek alternative routes when possible. It also noted that Highway 87 at Bullard Road in the Berrydale area and Molino Bridge Road at Marion Way and Ten Mile Road in Chumuckla had water over the roadway.

According to EREC CEO Ryan Campbell, much of the damage was caused by what authorities are calling straight line winds but Campbell said an F2 tornado was confirmed in the Munson area that went down to Baker.

"There was an incredible amount of damage in the north end of Santa Rosa County," said Campbell. "We haven't seen damage like this since Hurricane Ivan. It was equivalent to that of a category 3 hurricane. It was bad."

Campbell said restoration involves both wires and poles down, but he said the difference is that each pole takes 2 to 3 hours to reset and the wire still has to be strung, which takes longer. He said with well over 150 poles down, they were still able to get power restored Tuesday to almost all their customers and they are now still cleaning up. Bigger storms usually damage the actual poles, so it takes a lot longer to restore when poles are damaged because they do have to be set and wired, versus when only wire is damaged from trees falling on them or wind.

Campbell said EREC does a lot of preventative maintenance to keep its poles intact and in good shape. He said the recent fiber optic project saw 13 percent of its poles replaced, as well as the yearly maintenance that is given.

"It looked like a hurricane went through, like a war zone, it was just devastated over there," said Campbell. "So many people lost so much of their personal property. It's very sad."

Campbell said EREC has mutual aid agreements with various electric companies that helped almost continuously from Thursday to Sunday through three nights of storms that brought a range of damage.

There were day crews who helped restore power and worked the pole change outs.

"All in all, we had about 15 times the amount we normally have," said Campbell. helping "The community support after this storm was just amazing. It makes you emotional thinking about it. The dedication of our employees every day that deals with the community, they know what they're getting out of our cooperative because they deal with our employees every day. All the donations of food and snacks and drinks and well wishes and prayers, it was just amazing."