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Storm leaves damage, cancellations
September 28, 2006
A Saturday morning thunderstorm left behind damage from heavy winds in the Oneida area and kicked off a day of wild weather in Scott County and East Tennessee.
While damage from the 8 a.m. storm was reported in a line from Leatherwood Road to Cherry Fork Road just south of Oneida, the most substantial damage occurred in the Big Springs community, near the intersection of Big Springs Road and Betty Jane Lane.
There, one home received substantial roof damage, while at least three outbuildings were destroyed.
The home of Dale and Kathy Daugherty received the most damage, with winds ripping away a section of roof from a recent addition to the home. Timbers were scattered in a field in front of the home, with metal sheeting scattered over several hundred yards, including one section that was wrapped around a downed tree on the opposite side of the road.
“Everything was so loud; it sounded like a big train was going through,” Dale Daugherty said.
All the furnishings in the portion of the home damaged by the wind were soaked by rain.
In the Daughertys’ back yard, meanwhile, several large trees were uprooted, with one of them crushing a metal outbuilding and knocking down utility lines.
Throughout the rest of the neighborhood, the scene was similar, with roads blocked and lines downed by uprooted trees. Two metal outbuildings were crushed beneath a large pine tree at one home, while a section of fence was down at another nearby home on Betty Jane Drive. Throughout the neighborhood, several homes sustained minor damage.
The culprit was apparently straight-line winds caused by the severe thunderstorm, although there was some initial speculation as to whether a small tornado had developed from the storm. An initial report to the Scott County Sheriff’s Department in the immediate aftermath of the storm reported a tornado, but the National Weather Service’s Morristown office did not confirm a tornado touch-down in the area.
Units from the Sheriff’s Department were on the scene within minutes, as well as Emergency Management Director Wayne Shoemaker and two units from Scott County EMS. No injuries were reported.
Road Superintendent Dick Sexton and a crew from the Road Department also responded to remove trees from the roadway, and crews from Plateau Electric Cooperative were dispatched to restore power in the area.
On Monday morning, crews from the Road Department and Highland Telephone Cooperative were back on the scene as clean-up from the storm continued.
In the Leatherwood Road and Cherry Fork Road areas, meanwhile, trees were uprooted and some minor roof damage was reported from the same storm. According to Sexton, he and his crew had just responded to remove a tree from Cherry Fork Road when they learned of the damage in the Big Springs area.
No additional major damage was reported from the storm, though an Oral Drive — just south of Cherry Fork Road — home sustained minor damage when a tree fell onto its roof.
The storm was one of many that plagued East Tennessee throughout the day. Heavy rains and flash-flooding were the most widely-reported effects of the storm.
According to the NWS’s Morristown office, the Scott County area received between two and 2.5 inches of rain during the day Saturday, with localized rain amounts topping three inches in some areas. The rain was much heavier in parts of East Tennessee, particularly in the Tennessee Valley, where Knoxville received around six inches of rain Saturday and Lenoir City received eight inches of rain. In Knoxville, the University of Tennessee’s homecoming football game against Marshall University, attended by a number of Scott County residents, was delayed 55 minutes due to lightning.
Closer to home, storms forced the cancellation of both the Heritage Day festival at Scott High School and the Haunting in the Hills story-telling festival at Bandy Creek in the Big South Fork NRRA.
According to Gary Sexton, curator of the Museum of Scott County at SHS and organizer of the Heritage festival, some 300 cars were turned away after the festival was cancelled, including a number of out-of-town residents who had planned to attend the event.
The festival has been rescheduled for Saturday, with the same schedule as had been set for a week ago.
The festival will officially kick off at 10 a.m., with bluegrass music beginning at 12 noon, and will last until 6 p.m. A number of artisans will be on hand to demonstrate and perform activities from primitive weapon-making to sheep herding. Several arts and crafts vendors will also have booths at the festival.
news@ihoneida.com
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