Published: July 22, 2008 10:59 pm      

Storm knocks out power in area

About a dozen North Georgia Electric Membership Corp. (NGEMC) customers in the Frontier Trail area of Varnell were still without power Tuesday evening because of rain and high winds that swept through the area Monday night.

“It was just a lot of wind damage,” said Claude Craig, deputy director of Whitfield County’s Emergency Management Agency.

Approximately 8,000 NGEMC customers in Whitfield and Murray counties were initially without power after severe storms around 8 p.m., said spokesman Jeff Rancudo. The power outages were concentrated in the northern section of the counties, he said.

Dalton Utilities reported “brief and sporadic” outages in a residential area of Henderson Street in downtown Dalton and near Industrial Boulevard.

One family had to leave their house, at 825 Beaverdale Road in north Whitfield County, after a tree fell on it. The American Red Cross is housing the family, which consists of a mother, father and two teenage children, in a hotel, said Laura Cleary with the Red Cross. No one was injured.