Around the area, school was closed in Springville and Leeds after the storm, owing primarily to power outages. Leeds students were to go back to class Wednesday; however, as of Tuesday afternoon, Springville schools had not announced when they would resume classes.
Springville Police Chief Greg Charles said that downed trees had closed U.S. 11 in the downtown area of the city, and power was out in a large portion as well.
“We have several places where the trees fell on power lines and snapped the poles,” he said. “I think it might be quite a while before we can get power restored.”
Crews from Alabama Power were in Springville Tuesday. The City Council canceled its public hearing and meeting scheduled for Tuesday night and moved it to Monday, Sept. 12.
In Leeds, Mayor Eric Patterson said the rain swelled the Little Cahaba River well over its banks.
“I’ve never seen it like that,” he said. “Only a couple of streets became impassable altogether, and the city was never totally shut down. It was hazardous, but it was never where you couldn’t drive around it.”
Patterson commended his city crews for their work.
“There’s a good bit of power outages in the city, and we had some trees go down across some of our roads,” he said. “Our crews got out immediately and removed them. Also, our crews were out during the storm helping people that were stranded and putting barriers up to block roads that were treacherous. They did a great job with that.”
Leeds’ City Council planned to hold its regular meeting Tuesday night.
Tommy Bowers, manager for the APC Pell City and Ashville offices, said there were about 2,500 customers without power in the Pell City service area Monday night, but only about 300 residents still did not have power Tuesday.
“They are all scattered,” he said.
Bowers said Tuesday morning that about 180 customers were still without power in the Cook Springs area, and the rest of the outages were south or southeast of Pell City.
“We have a lot of isolated cases,” Bowers said. “It’s going to take a little more effort to get them back on.”
He said about 2,200 customers were without power in the Ashville service area, but only about 1,000 were still without power as of Tuesday morning.
Bowers said statewide more than 200,000 customers lost power, and as of Tuesday morning about 153,000 customers were still without electricity. Of that number, about 138,000 customers in the Birmingham Metro Area were still without power Tuesday morning.
He said about 3,000 customers in Blount and Etowah counties were still without power after about 18,000 lost electrical service as remnants of Tropical Storm Lee rolled through east-central Alabama.
He said only 34 Alabama Power customers were without power Tuesday in the Talladega service area.
Pell City Fire Chief Patrick Draper said the Fire Department responded to some calls reporting trees down, “especially last night (Monday) through Tuesday morning.”
He said there were no reports of property damage in Pell City.
“I don’t want to downplay it, but it was about what we expected, a lot of wind and rain,” Draper said.
Pell City Police Chief Greg Turley said no weather-related accidents were reported as Tropical Storm Lee moved across Pell City.
“We did not have any problems,” Turley said. “We didn’t have any flooding or storm damage at all.”
County Commission Chairman Stan Batemon said the county experienced some issues, but nothing major.
“We had some trees down and we did have some roads flooded, but we didn’t have as many as we’ve had in other rain events,” he said. “So we didn’t have anything beyond what we’ve handled before, and less than what we’ve had in the past.”
The Sylacauga and Childersburg areas reported little to no damage from the storms Monday.
Childersburg Police Chief Shane Burnette said some tree limbs fell as a result of the rain and winds, but no trees were reported knocked down. Sylacauga Police said there were no reports of property damage.
A spokeswoman with Sylacauga utilities said there were only a few instances of power outages in the city. She said between 10-15 residences called to report an outage.
Staff writer David Atchison and Matt Quillen contributed to this report.
