No injuries were reported in an early morning storm that roared across Sumner County on Tuesday downing trees and power lines, briefly disrupting power at three area schools and delaying some school buses.
Throughout the county there were reports of heavy wind and rain damage, including a tornado sighting in the Station Camp area between Gallatin and Hendersonville, according to Ken Weidner, director of the Sumner County Emergency Management Agency (EMA). However, there were no reports of damage from that incident.
While there were approximately 1,800 of the nearly 23,000 Gallatin Department of Electricity customers without power during the storm, General Manager Mark Kimbell said that service had been restored to all but less than 20 customers as of early Tuesday afternoon.
“The outages were mostly on the south side of town,” Kimbell said. “We had one pole broken, but most of (the damage) was tree limbs on the lines.”
In Hendersonville, power was restored at William Burrus Elementary before the school opened for the day, according to Sumner County Schools Spokesperson Jeremy Johnson. At White House High School and Knox Doss Middle School, students and teachers were without electricity for about an hour before it was restored.
The storm hit after some school buses started rolling at 5:30 a.m. Johnson said the buses that were carrying about 50 to 60 students were immediately instructed to go to the closest school where students were shepherded inside until the storm passed.
“We knew there was a chance of severe thunderstorms, but it wasn’t until buses were on the road that they issued a tornado warning,” Johnson said. “It just happened so quickly.”
Following the storm, Gallatin officials encouraged residents to sign up to receive CodeRED emergency alerts.
The service, which is free to register for, allows individuals to be notified by telephone, text message and email regarding emergencies, urgent notifications and other time-sensitive information like severe weather alerts.
According to the most data provided by the city’s information technology department, there were 1,408 residential addresses and 71 businesses that were signed up to receive some type of emergency alerts from CodeRED as of August 2020.
“Tuesday’s storm is the latest reminder that tornadoes are a very real danger this time of year,” Mayor Paige Brown said. “I would encourage everyone to… take a minute to sign up for smart-phone alerts that could save your life.”
Registration to receive CodeRED emergency alerts can be done online through the city’s website at www.gallatintn.gov/1860/Code-Red-Message-System.
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