Straight Line Wind Event - March 20, 2006

Straight Line Wind Damage Across Bullock and Russell Counties

A National Weather Service Storm Survey Team was dispatched to assess the damage produced by a line of thunderstorms that moved across portions of Central Alabama late Monday afternoon. After input from several witnesses...and a ground assessment of the damage...it was determined that all of the damage was the result of straight line winds.

Damage in Bullock County was found along a broad area between County Road 37 and Union Springs. This swath of damage was estimated to be more than six miles across at the widest point and was more than eleven miles long. The hardest hit communities included High Log and Cornerstone. Best estimates are that more than one thousand trees were snapped off above the ground in this area with an estimated one hundred trees uprooted. Mature pines and hardwoods, some more than two feet in diameter, were among the damaged trees. Structural damage was limited to an unsecured out-building one mile southeast of Fitzpatrick and a mobile home in Cornerstone. The out-building was completely destroyed with some of its contents and structure blown more than one quarter of a mile downwind. A large tree fell on the mobile home nearly cutting it in two. Eye witnesses estimated this damage to have occurred between 745 PM CST and 800 PM CST. A Severe Thunderstorm Warning was in effect for Bullock County from 725 PM CST to 815 PM CST.

Additional tree damage was found in Bullock County to the east of Union Springs, near the intersection of County Roads 40 and 109 and along State Road 51 between Sehoy Lake and the Macon County line.

In Russell County, damage was less intense but more widespread. Although there did not appear to be any one area of concentrated damage, there were at least a dozen trees either snapped or uprooted between Hurtsboro and Seale. There have been no deaths or injuries reported as a result of these storms.