A massive storm cell sparked Tornado watches about 4:30 in North Middle Georgia form the National Weather Service in Peachtree City. By 5:00 storms and tornado were seen in Upson, Lamar and Spalding Counties. In Lamar County two storms, possibly tornadoes, one east of Barnesville and one west.
Bobby Ferris of Southern Rivers Energy reported the co-op is aware of damage. He also said “We don’t know how bad it is. Their computer system was down and the IT team were called in and were working on it and had it back in operation by 6:41 p.m. At that time there were about 1,700 co-op members without power.
Multiple trees and power lines were reported down along, Sanders, Morgan Dairy, Rock Springs, Walton, Johnstonville, High Falls Park, Chappell Mill and Parker Branch roads. Power was reported out in multiple areas.
As of 8:00 p.m. Sunday evening, November 23, 2014, approximately 2,000 Central Georgia EMC customers were without power due to serve thunderstorms and strong winds. Additional contract crews were called to assist with restoring electric service. Outages were scattered across CGEMC’s fourteen-county service territory, extensive damage occurred in areas of Butts, and Monroe counties. Overall 8,442 meters were without power at the peak of the storm.
Crews are clearing many fallen trees and repairing a number of broken poles and downed power lines in these areas. Please stay away from downed lines and report them immediately to CGEMC, your local power company, or call 911. Crews will remain on duty until all power has been restored. Be cautious during severe weather; limbs and trees can tear down electric lines. Any dangling line or lines on the ground can be very dangerous.
CGEMC customers may report outages by calling CGEMC and using our automated outage reporting system, at 770-775-7857. During widespread outages, customers may experience longer than normal wait times due to a higher call volume.
CGEMC meets the electric energy needs of members in a 14 county area (Bibb, Butts, Clayton, Fayette, Henry, Jasper, Jones, Lamar, Monroe, Morgan, Newton, Pike, Putnam, and Spalding counties).
A pole barn was destroyed at the county barn building near the Barnesville-Lamar County Industrial Park. Lamar public works superintendent James Rigdon said it appeared the storm went in the back door and out the front door, damaging both roll-up doors. County Commissioner Jay Matthews said his initial assessment was the county barn is a total loss.
Sheriff Brad White said that as of 5:50 Sunday Afternoon there were no injuries reported.
• Traffic accidents were reported on High Falls Road and Morgan Dairy Road at Highway 36 East. • An outbuilding was damaged by falling trees on Old Alabama Road near Milner. • One motor vehicle accident related to the storm was reported. • A downburst took the roof off a mobile home on Abbott Road in Lamar County.
In Upson County near Delray Road close to potato creek at Logan Landing Subdivision homes were severely damaged and power lines were downed. But there was no reports of injuries. The Red Cross responded to the area to assist those in need. Another tornado was seen in south eastern Upson County.
The line of severe weather moved across the area that included a portion of South Eastern Spalding County. A tornado was seen in the skies close to Swint Road near Orchard Hill by Sheriffs Deputies but there were no reports it ever touched down or any damage reports in Spalding County.
Butts County, north of Jackson, near 4 points road Highway 36 and Stark Road, a tornado took down power lines and cause some damage to homes there but no injuries were reported from Upson , Butts, Lamar or Spalding Counties.
The storm cell continued its move to the North East and when it neared Covington the National Weather service indicated it ran into a cool front entering Georgia close to that area the storm then dissipated completely. And canceling a tornado watch several minutes early.
WKEU would like to thank Walter Geiger, of the Barnesville Herald Gazette, WKEU’s meteorologist Tony Broski, Bill Chapman of 88.9 FM Georgia Public Radio, The Rock, Ed Horard in Butts County, and Brad Nits of Channel 2 news for their assistance during the storm, and in this news story.