Storms go easy on Pulaski County, but winds remain

Apr. 1—While the most recent damaging storm system to cut across the U.S. caused devastation elsewhere, Pulaski County was spared the chaos that it saw early in March.

But that doesn't mean it got off scot free.

High winds a month ago caused massive power outages, downed trees, and complications that lasted for days afterward. But even though the storms that started late Friday and went into the early Saturday hours brought fierce winds, there wasn't much damage across the area to show for it.

And that's even considering the fact that around 3 a.m., areas to the south and east of Pulaski — including Wayne, McCreary and Laurel Counties — were under a tornado warning.

"I don't know of any (major damage reports), really," said Pulaski County Public Safety Director Stacy Halcomb on Saturday afternoon. He mentioned hearing of a power line down on West Ky. 80 earlier in the day, but "they got that fixed pretty quick."

That doesn't mean the day was entirely without incident. Halcomb said that in the early hours about 2 a.m., there was a structure fire in Faubush at an abandoned house. Grass fires were also an issue throughout the day Saturday, he noted.

Another problem was a power line down across the Cumberland Parkway around the Piney Grove exit, that necessitated traffic control on the busy highway, said Halcomb.

And on Saturday afternoon around 2 p.m., in downtown Somerset, a large portion of a tree fell on the roof of local attorney Robert Norfleet on Vortex Corner.

Saturday also saw power outages in several locations throughout Pulaski County, as well as key stoplights that wouldn't work — including the relatively new one at the intersection of Ky. 70 and North U.S. 27 in Eubank.

Morghan Blevins, Communications Specialist for South Kentucky RECC, said on Monday, that at the peak of outages on Saturday afternoon, there were 10,000 without power across the system, with over half of those in Pulaski County.

"For the most part, by Sunday morning, we had (the number of those without power) back down to under 2,000; it was around 1,700," she said. "We had crews just in case, and we immediately reached out to some mutual aid and contract crews, and we had people working all day. By (Monday) morning, we were down to about 12 people, so it took about a day ... to get everybody back on."

That's a much shorter outage period that people saw a month earlier, but even this time, Blevins noted how hard it was for crews to work in the windy conditions.

Specific areas hit included Shopville, Oak Hill, and around Boat Dock Road, Blevins noted.

"It covered the county pretty good," she said. "We'd get one back on, and with the wind blowing like it was, sometimes it would knock it back out.

Added Blevins, "Basically, you just put your head down and go to work. That's what we did. We're here for our members, and we just go to work to get them back on as safely and quickly as we can."

According to meteorologist Jon Pelton with the National Weather Service Office in Jackson, Ky., they received a "couple of reports" of trees down in the Nancy area and closer to Somerset from the nocturnal storms.

"Probably the more widespread gusts, for most people, are occurring (Saturday)," he said. "... From everything we received so far (about the late night storms), there were a couple of area that maybe saw some small hail too, but a lot of it was just some heavy rain rates and strong wind gusts and a few trees down scattered around a few locations."

A wind gust recorded Saturday at the local airport was at 51 miles per hour, which is in line with what forecasts had predicted.

Nationally, the storms did much more damage. The Associated Press reported that possibly dozens of tornadoes killed at least 32 people in small towns and big cities across the south and midwest, tearing a path through the Arkansas capital, collapsing the roof of a packed concert venue in Illinois, and stunning people throughout the region Saturday with the damage's scope.

Confirmed or suspected tornadoes were in at least seven states. The dead included seven in one Tennessee county, four in the small town of Wynne, Arkansas, and three in Sullivan, Indiana, according to the Associated Press.

As for the week ahead, Pelton said there is a system coming in that's being watched that could bring thunderstorms with strong wind gusts, toward Wednesday.

"The forecast is a little bit more confident west of (Pulaski), Tuesday or Tuesday night, more toward the Mississippi Valley, far western Kentucky, and parts of central Kentucky," said Pelton. "There's some question on the timing, depending on how that comes through. ... It looks like it might be a little warmer with that system, so we certainly couldn't rule out some strong or locally severe storms depending on how everything comes together."