Managing Editor

Jan. 10, 2000 11 PM

A storm that made its way through Troy early Monday morning knocked out power in some parts of the city and had some merchants and residents reporting some minor damage to their homes and businesses.

Sometime between 3 a.m. and 3:30 Monday, high winds from a thunderstorm caused power outages in three areas of Troy. In two of the three cases, tree limbs were the direct cause of the outages.

"We had a tree limb blow on to a line out on Henderson Road near Hudson Industries," said James Flowers, manager of Troy Public Utilities. "We also had a limb down on A-Street near Haynes Ambulance that knocked out power."

A third area of town that experienced some trouble was along New Street which runs off Copeland, Flowers said.

"We had a transformer blow some fuses," Flowers said. "It could have been the result of lightning or it could have been a case of a tree limb knocking against the transformer and taking out power."

Flowers said crews had power restored to the city by 7 a.m.

"Most of the problems seemed to be wind related," Flowers said. "There may have been some lightning damage."

Businesses along the Highway 231 Bypass seemed to be hardest hit by the storm that did damage to some roofs and took down signs along the highway.

"It got us pretty good," said Robert Jones, manager of Crowe’s Chicken on Highway 231. "It knocked down our sign, which means there must have been some pretty strong winds blowing."

Jones said there was a little damage to shutters on the building, but that no major structural damage occurred. Crowe’s was open for business Monday.

He said the sign would require replacing, which is expected to take three weeks.

Jones’ neighbor, Pizza Hut, lost several roofing tiles in the storm, but also reported that there was no significant damage to the building.

"It blew off some tiles from our roof," said Doris Brown, manager of Pizza Hut. "There were some pieces in the Chevron parking lot."

Despite some minor leaks and roofing work that was going on Monday, Pizza Hut remained open.

Winds from the storm left debris in a variety of places along Highway 231, and some residents reported that their windows exploded, making it appear as if the winds were related to a tornado. No tornado, however, was reported to have touched down.