West Alabama Tuesday Briefing
It is Tuesday May 28, 2024, the last week of the month of May.
Cleanup is continuing across Central Alabama today after yesterday's severe thunderstorms knocked down trees and power lines, left some homes and vehicles damaged and cut power to more than 80,000 customers.
There are still some 1,700 customers without power in Bibb County as we head into the afternoon hours. Tuscaloosa County's outages have been whittled to 879. Pickens County is still counting 73 outages. All are expected to be back online later today.
There was one fatality in Jefferson County when a tree crashed into an apartment. Fortunately, no injuries were reported in West Alabama.
There are still chances of showers and thunderstorm through most of the week:
The Forecast:
Topping the News:
"Bloody Tuesday" in Tuscaloosa was overshadowed by "Bloody Sunday" in Selma but it was a major event in and of itself in the Civil Rights struggle 60 years ago. The attack on marchers by police and angry citizens at First African Baptist Church downtown injured men. women and children. They were marching to desegregate the new county courthouse downtown.
Dodd is 6'1" in height and weight is around 200 pounds. He has brown hair and brown eyes.
If you see him call 9-1-1.
The Environmental Protection Agency has denied Alabama's application to implement a coal ash permit program. The ruling states that Alabama's permitting does not comply with federal standards.
Had the EPA approved of Alabama's process, Coal ash units would have continued to be allowed to leach into groundwater, further contaminating it.
The decision impacts all three of Alabama Power's plants in the Black Warrior River Basin.
It has been a year since the Alabama Cannabis Commission began licensing for growing medical marijuana in the state. However, multiple lawsuits over the awarding process have stopped the licensing of distributors.
Commission Chair John McMillian tell news partner ABC 3340 the product is already being grown in the state with no place to sell it. He hopes the legal wrangling will soon be over and sales can begin in about four months.
Topping Sports News:
It is a short work week that will be dominated by talk of what happened over the weekend. The Alabama Softball Team was given little chance of making it past the regionals, but they did. Then they were given little to no chance of winning the Knoxville Super Regional, but they did.
The Tide found just enough offense to go with stellar pitching and exceptional defense to eliminate #3 seeded and arch-rival Tennessee and punch their ticket for Oklahoma City and the NCAA Softball World Series.
Congrats to Coach Patrick Murphey, his staff and most of all the players for class, quality play and a little silliness while proving most everyone wrong.
A tip of the hat to the Alabama Baseball Team for securing a spot in the NCAA Tallahassee Regional.
Both teams begin play on Thursday with the softball facing powerhouse UCLA at 11:00am CDT in Oklahoma City. The Tide Baseball Team takes on Central Florida at 5:00pm in Tallahassee.
More than 180,000 fans turned out for the six-day Southeastern Conference Baseball Championship Tournament, a record.
Sunday's title game won by Tennessee over LSU drew more than 16,000.
The whole country seems to be pulling for the team without a school. The Birmingham-Southern Panthers Baseball squad has earned a berth in the Division III College World Series in East Lake, Ohio.
They open play on Friday, the very day BSC ceases to exist after being shuttered for financial reasons. The first opponent in the double elimination tournament is Salve Regina.
Have a blessed week and ROLL TIDE, Go Panthers.
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