Strong storms cause property damage across White County

May 4 brought a round of strong storms through Middle Tennessee, causing damage across the region, including many areas of White County.

“There is a storm patch from Old Smithville Highway through the Sparta Drive-In and on across Golden Mountain Road,” White County’s EMA director, Stanley Neal, commented shortly after the strong winds and rain subsided by mid-morning. “The path may continue up the mountain, but it’s still not determined.”

Countywide, Neal estimated that between 35 and 40 homes were damaged and said that at least three White County businesses suffered damage in the storms as well. He went on to say that numerous barns and outbuilding were damaged, some severely, in the morning storms.

“We have been in touch with the National Weather Service and have provided pictures and data to them,” Neal said, adding that he was grateful that there were no reports of personal injuries and there were no fatalities resulting from Tuesday morning’s weather event.  “They will have to come out [to the damage areas] before it can be determined if it was a tornado. I do not know when that might occur.”

Krissy Hurley, the Warning Coordinator for the National Weather Service in Nashville, said that based solely on damage seen and radar imagery, the NWS thinks that it is very likely that a tornado did come through White County, along with 10 other counties: Robertson, Cheatham, Davidson, Sumner, Trousdale, Jackson, Smith, DeKalb, Cumberland, and Bedford.

“Most of the damage and/or pictures we have seen has been in the EF-0 realm of things, but we’re still investigating,” Hurley said. “It will take us several days to develop survey details as well as specific maps since many of these tornadoes were embedded within straight-line wind damage as well.”

Hurley said the National Weather Service is working to determine if each area of damage is isolated and unrelated or if any of the suspected tornadoes connect to each other. However, she stated that it will take some time for them to get a clear and definitive picture of the entire morning’s events.

In Sparta, approximately 200 customers lost electric service. Belva Bess, the city’s electric manager, said crews worked until 10:30 p.m. to get as many homes restored as possible. On the morning of May 5, Bess said her crews were back in the field by 5 a.m. to cut trees and get service to the remaining homes, most of which were in the Edgewood Drive area.

“We will have a few that we have had to cut the power to until they are able to replace the boxes that were ripped from their houses, but as soon as they make those repairs, we will have their service on for them,” Bess said.

Bess said Sparta’s crews focused on Findlay Elementary School and Dometic (formerly known as Moeller) since they felt the school and industry were priorities at the time.

At press time, Caney Fork Electric was still working to repair lines and restore service to many of their customers, and no one was available to comment on the number of outages or timeframe for repairs.

“Sparta’s public works and fire department, along with the White County Rescue Squad and many of the county’s volunteer fire departments, helped to clear roads and get help where it was needed during the assessment and repair stages of the storm’s aftermath,” Sparta Fire Chief Kirk Young, said, and further commented that all of Sparta and White County’s emergency agencies came together to help the community.