Hurricane Irma’s winds and rain stormed through the region Monday night, causing a scare for some, but the damage was unexpectedly minimal in most of the area.
“All of us really expected this to be a lot worse,” said Ricky Colston, Chattanooga Citywide Services director. “So we were really surprised, and happy about that, too, that we didn’t have as many trees down as we thought or the flooding conditions [we expected].”
Power outages across the region were minimal. EPB had its crews on alert and called in help from Cleveland, Tenn., Knoxville, Nashville and La Follette utilities.
At the height of the storm, 4 percent of EPB customers were without power. As of Tuesday afternoon, 1 percent of the 170,000 EPB-serviced homes and businesses in the area were still in the dark, and that was the case throughout the rest of the day. Those locations were predicted to be without power for much of the night because of the extensive work required to clear the sites that were scattered across the area, EPB spokesman John Pless said. The other municipalities helping were already in the area or heading that way Tuesday afternoon to help clear downed lines and restore power.
The brunt of the storm’s damage was concentrated on Signal Mountain, where wind bursts knocked trees into homes, made roads impassable and downed power lines. Several homes were severely damaged, while others narrowly averted disaster.