CULLMAN, Ala. – The Cullman County Commission voted to terminate the local emergency that was declared prior to the storms Wednesday March 17. Cullman County EMA director Phyllis Little said, “Other than having some repeat issues with areas that were washed out and flooded last week, we did have some new areas of flooding and most of it was flash flooding, and there was the interstate that everybody is familiar with, but I haven’t received any new damages that would cause me to think that we have an extreme load on top of what we had last week.”
She continued, “A lot of it is going to be repeated damage from culverts that have not settled long enough and it’s not anything we can really do about that except go back and fix it.” There were no reports of structural damage from the latest round of storms, so the recommendation was to terminate the existing emergency declaration.
More strong storms are expected in the coming days. Little updated the commission, “We are looking at some strong to severe thunderstorms possible starting around midnight tonight (Friday) going into the morning (Saturday). We are looking at another round Sunday. We are not in a high–risk area for that. We are not, at this time, looking at tornadic–type weather. Of course, you can never rule that out with a thunderstorm anyway. The forecast that is in place now is nothing like we had for yesterday or what we had for last week. This looks like the usual springtime thunderstorms that we’ve come to expect in the South.”
Chairman Jeff Clemons praised those out working to repair damages. He said, “I want to thank Phyllis (Little) with EMA for all their hard work in the last two floodings that we have had. It’s been devastating. I want to thank the road department and the water department for all the hard work they did yesterday. I was out on several scenes with them. There were up in mud knee deep putting pipes in and water lines. I can’t thank them enough, from me and Kerry (Watson) for all their hard work. The co-op, they were out last night getting people’s power restored and our county fire departments. It’s truly an honor to get to work with all those folks. All the dedication they do for our county. Thank you all so much.”
Cullman County received over 5 inches of additional rainfall Thursday. Many of the areas that had been fixed from last week’s flooding are being repaired again. Chairman Clemons said, “We had a lot of rain, my goodness. They repaired roads yesterday in the pouring down rain and it rained so hard that we even had water lines that were washed out of the ground that the water department had to go fix.” County road crews went back out early Friday morning and will work through the day.
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