Overnight storms dumped several inches of rain and caused wind damage across parts of Carroll County on Wednesday, Sept. 6, and the Carroll County Law Enforcement Complex was affected after lightning apparently struck a communications tower.
The complex. located off Hailey Road in Berryville, houses the Carroll County Sheriff’s Office and the Carroll County Detention Center.
Sheriff Daniel Klatt said systems at the complex are intentionally redundant just for such occasions and neither the sheriff’s office nor the jail were left unable to operate. Still, some adjustments were necessary.
“Like I tell everybody, it’s like somebody with two broken legs,” Klatt said. “We’re getting around but it isn’t very good.”
By Friday, Sept. 8, Klatt said all of the complex’s systems were up.
“It may be slow or limited, but it’s all back up,” he said.
The county’s 911 calls rolled over to Madison County briefly, Klatt said.
“There was never any danger to anybody,” he said. “911, the minute it went down it just transferred to Huntsville, to Madison County. They took care of all our 911 stuff. Basically what they’d do is they’d field the calls and they’d transfer them right back to us, through our landline. But 911 is back in our hands now.”
Klatt said he was sure the communications tower was hit by lightning.
“It took out the light on top of the tower and a couple of antennas,” he said. “We don’t really know for sure all the damage on the tower. We have to wait until we can get a tower climber to come and assess the damage. But again, we have the redundancy with our radio systems. So all the radio systems are up. They’re working.”
Klatt said Mike McKelvey, director of the Carroll County Office of Emergency Management, responded to assist after the lightning strike.
“Mike’s been in and out quite a bit,” Klatt said. “We were all up there at 3 a.m. the morning it happened. We were up there all day, coordinating and getting people in. Luckily, I know a lot about that network and always have, so as soon as the dust settled, I knew exactly who to call.”
Klatt said he especially wanted to thank Cox Communications, Pitt Technology Group and the Carroll County Judge’s Office.
“They’ve all been great,” Klatt said.
