A midweek blast of wind toppled trees across the area and caused dozens of isolated power outages, though utility crews were able to address all of the weather-related service interruptions within hours of the springtime storm’s passing.

Straight-line winds reached 30 mph Wednesday afternoon and through the overnight hours into Thursday, with gusts in excess of 50 mph across Cullman County and north Alabama. “There were lots of trees down throughout the county,” said Cullman EMA director Tim Sartin on Thursday. “It was just a widespread wind event that primarily caused some power outages, but everything is back to normal now.”

Power customers in both rural Cullman County and in the City of Cullman saw brief interruptions, with Cullman Electric Cooperative crews addressing outages that affected 1,500 members countywide at the height of the windy weather.

“From Wednesday afternoon until the evening, our crews were working on scattered power outages, but we had everything restored and back on by Thursday morning,” said CEC communications manager Brian Lacy. “There was nothing major at any one location; just a lot of downed tress and broken branches across our service area.”

Sartin said National Weather Service data indicated the strongest wind gusts reached 51 mph in Cullman County during Wednesday’s prolonged front approach, which whipped the area for several hours ahead of the short-lived nighttime storm.