The Daily Citizen, Dalton, GA

Local News

March 13, 2010

High winds cause considerable damage, no injuries

DALTON — High winds and hail tore through the Tunnel Hill area Friday afternoon knocking down close to 100 trees and damaging several buildings.

“We had a couple of houses that were damaged,” said Jeffrey Putnam, Whitfield County director of emergency services. “We had one trailer that’s probably going to end up being destroyed. A tree fell on it and did some pretty significant damage. We had a barn roof taken off up there.”

Putnam said no injuries were reported but the damage stretched from the Dogwood Valley and Houston Valley area north to the county line. A field survey by the Whitfield County Fire Department and the Emergency Services staff found four homes with minor damage, one home with major damage and one barn with moderate damage.

“There was no rotation in the broken trees that we could see,” he said. “The weather service said they didn’t think there was any rotation. It was all straight-line winds. Typically, with trees that are uprooted or broken like that, we are talking about 60 or 70 mph winds.”

The winds swept through about 1 p.m. Downed trees closed several roads. Putnam said all the roads had been cleared by about 3 p.m.

North Georgia EMC spokesman Jeff Rancudo said the utility had about 100 customers without power in the Rocky Face/Tunnel Hill area and about 10 in the Villanow area at about 3:45 p.m. He said crews were worked as quickly as possible to restore power.

“We had one line on Bridge Road that had six trees fall on it,” he said.

Putnam said there were no reports of significant damage in other parts of the county.

“There was some minor flooding in the areas that typically flood,” he said.

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