Severe Storm Hits Alpharetta, Cumming, Widespread Outages

A severe thunderstorm blew through Alpharetta and Cumming early Wednesday evening dropping marble sized hail in some areas. The heavy rain, high winds and intense lightening were enough to knock power out for thousands.

According to Cindy Badgett, spokesperson with Sawnee EMC, as of 7 p.m. approximately 6,000 customers are without power.

"At 6 p.m. we did start dispatching crews all over our territory so that they can work on those outages as they happened," said Badgett. "We do have staff here at Sawnee EMC that will stay here until the power is restored."

Christy Ihrig, spokesperson with Georgia Power tells Patch that there are 1,700 customers who are without power--primarily in the Cumming and Alpharetta areas. Georgia Power Tweeted that 46,000 customers were without power in metro Atlanta at 9 p.m.

"Crews are out-deployed and doing the best they can right now to get power restored and that's kind of where we are right now," said Ihrig.

The National Weather Service reports a severe thunderstorm watch has been extended until 11 p.m. for Forsyth and the following counties: Fulton, Barrow, Cherokee, Cobb, Dawson, Dekalb, Douglas, Fannin, Gilmer, Gwinett, Hall, Lumpkin, Pickins and Union.