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By Carey Reeder | Managing Editor

A strong line of storms pushed through Alabama in the late-night hours of Feb.15 and the early-morning hours of Feb. 16 that left thousands in Chilton County without power. The strong line of storms pushed through Alabama quickly and only affected areas for a short amount of time as they moved east, but the aftermath was downed trees, power lines and over 238,000 Alabama Power customers across the state without power when the sun came up on Feb. 16.

Alabama Power crews were dispatched across Alabama following the overnight storms to access the damage. Alabama Power gave updates following the storms, and at 6 a.m. on Feb. 16 the outages were at its highest at 238,000 customers statewide without power, 40,000 of those were in central Alabama and 3,500 were in Chilton County specifically. By 11 a.m. the same morning, Alabama Power had already knocked down the overall number of outages in Alabama to 73,000, 22,000 in central Alabama and 2,400 in Chilton county.

Another large chuck of progress was made throughout the midday of Feb. 16, and by 9 p.m. more than 34,000 customers in central Alabama had their power restored. However, 6,700 customers in central Alabama still remained without power as outages existed in difficult to access areas. Chilton County’s number of outages by 9 p.m. on Feb. 16 was decreased to 490 customers.

Alabama Power continued their work in central Alabama into Feb. 17 with still around 4,000 customers without power. In Chilton County, as of 6 a.m. of Feb. 17, there are still 340 customers without power.

“Additional crews from Alabama and other states are in the area working to restore service as quickly and safely as possible,” a press release from Alabama Power said.

Alabama Power provided one final update in the evening hours of Feb. 17 that as of 8 p.m. there are only 150 outages left to be restored and many in the Alexander City area. All Chilton County outages were restored by the 8 p.m. update. In addition to the work of Alabama Power employees, 1,600 additional linemen from 11 states including crews from Mississippi Power and Georgia Power assisted in the restoration efforts.

Additionally, during the severe weather events over the last few weeks, Through the Grace of God Ministries building was flooded and the nonprofit is looking for volunteers to help clean up the mess. To learn more about how to support the ministry of 23 years, to volunteer and more, contact Bro. Ralph Bingham at 205-755-8199.