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Staff Photo by Allison Kewesell Ray Hobbs, maintenance supervisor, looks over storm damage at Sequatchie County High School in Dunlap on Friday.
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Staff photo by Allison Kwesell
The Smith family and friends stand next to their son's jeep at their home in Dunlap.
Sequatchie County was slammed by the storm and authorities are assessing damage.
Authorities said high winds downed trees and power lines across state Highway 28 and U.S. Highway 127 in the south part of the county.
Sheriff Ronnie Hitchcock said he saw at least 100 trees down in the area, but he said there were no reports yet of structural damage. He said he’d heard no confirmations of a tornado touching down.
Downed trees seemed to be pointed in the same direction, which indicates straight-line winds, Sheriff Hitchcock said.
Deputies were still answering calls to assist local residents at 5 p.m. EDT, the sheriff said.
Grundy County dispatcher Dana Knight said the storm front dealt a blow to trees and power lines, but there was no other major damage reported late Friday, just after the storm passed through.
“We got strong wind and hail,” Ms. Knight said. “We’ve got trees down everywhere and we’ve got a lot of power lines down.”
Sequachee Valley Electric Cooperative spokesman Mike Partin said South Sequatchie County was hardest hit in the utility’s service area.
Mr. Partin said there were outages throughout the area, as well as scattered outages in Marion and Grundy counties. No count was available immediately.
Crews have been dispatched to make repairs, he said.
Ben Benton is a news reporter at the Chattanooga Times Free Press. He covers Southeast Tennessee and previously covered North Georgia education. Ben has worked at the Times Free Press since November 2005, first covering Bledsoe and Sequatchie counties and later adding Marion, Grundy and other counties in the northern and western edges of the region to his coverage. He was born and raised in Cleveland, Tenn., a graduate of Bradley Central High School. Benton ...
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