Storm downs trees, cuts power

Strong winds and lightning strikes resulted in power outages and downed trees across the area, but no significant damage, according to officials in the Tri-City area.
While only an inch of rain fell across eastern St. Mary Parish as a cool front swept the area, sustained winds of 20 to 25 knots and gusts to 50 knots were reported at the Patterson airport, Ken Perry, owner of Perry Flying Center, said.
Morgan City’s power outages were due to lightning strikes on the Second and Sixth street feeders. Additionally, a tree fell on a power line in the woods off of Youngs Road and two transformers in front of Sub Surface Tools on Youngs Road blew, Bill Cefalu, city utilities director, said.
A strike on a lightning arrestor affected power at Cottonwood Apartments in front of Lakeside Subdivision and another lightning strike on a railroad switch box “blew the wires clean out of the box,” Cefalu said.
Cefalu estimated that 20 percent of the city was affected by outages.
“The majority of the problem was lightning in the southern part of city,” he said, adding that Kingsville and Elliot, Lakeside and Wyandotte subdivisions did not experience problems.
The Second and Sixth street feeder restoration was delayed because the battery bank that closes the breakers was bad. Cefalu said a backup had to be installed. Those areas were restored around 6:20 p.m., he said.
Youngs Road was restored around 8 p.m., once crews were able to locate and remove the tree in the woods, Cefalu said.
Finally, Cottonwood Apartments, on Victor II Boulevard, was restored around 10 p.m., he said.
Kristen Lemoine, Cleco communications representative, said 3,295 customers in St. Mary Parish were affected at the peak of the event.
The first outages reported to Cleco in the parish were at 10 a.m., and the last were restored at 11:30 p.m., Lemoine said.
Impact areas included Baldwin, Charenton, Louisa, Franklin, Patterson, Bayou Vista, Berwick and Bayou Ramos. The outages were the result of high winds and lightning, she said.
Morgan City Mayor Frank “Boo” Grizzaffi said one tree fell on Laurel Street, which the public works and fire departments cleared. The high school’s fire alarm went off twice, but both were false alarms, Grizzaffi said.
“Talking to fire, police and public works, there was nothing. We got lucky,” the mayor said.
Meanwhile in Berwick, Mayor Louis Ratcliff said crews were cleaning up fallen limbs, small trees and trash this morning, but nothing caused property damage.
Two trees fell and were cleared on Gilmore and Jones streets, he added.
Patterson Mayor Rodney Grogan said one small tree was downed on Red Cypress Road and campaign signs are down, but no drainage problems were reported.
Office of Emergency Preparedness Director Duval Arthur said most of the damage reported to his office from across the parish was to sheds.