A storm system swept through north Lincoln County Fridayafternoon bearing winds up to 90 miles per hour and somebaseball-sized hail.

Lincoln County Civil Defense Director Clifford Galey said theworst of the storm struck portions of the Loyd Star and New Sightareas. While the county was under two separate tornado warningsthroughout the day, Galey said it appears the damage was done bystraight-line winds.

“Won’t know anything for sure until Monday, but the consensus isit was straight-line winds, somewhere in the neighborhood of 90miles an hour,” he said, referring to the availability of NationalWeather Service statistics. “There was probably not atouchdown.”

The storm was initially headed northeast on a track that wouldhave taken it away from much of the county. At approximately 3p.m., however, the storm took an easterly turn.

Galey said the storm drove across the northern portion of thecounty from Loyd Star Lane and James Drive in a straight lineacross New Sight Drive toward Forest Trail.

Galey said while a few homes were damaged, the county seems tohave escaped almost unscathed.

“We had some trees and power lines down, but by storm standardswe didn’t have extensive damages to area homes,” he said. “Thisstorm had the capability to do a lot of damage, but thankfullythere was not a lot.”

Hail was reported with the storm system, ranging frommarble-sized pieces in the Loyd Star area up to some reports ofbaseball-sized hail in the New Sight community.

Loyd Star Volunteer Fire Chief Ladale Williams said in spite ofthe size of the hail, he had heard no reports of substantialdamage.

“All that was reported to me was that there was golf ball-sizedhail at Loyd Star school,” he said. “But that didn’t lastlong.”

Galey said because of that and similar reports, children werekept in the halls at Loyd Star, West Lincoln, Brookhaven Academy,and all the city schools until around 3:45 p.m.

“We had a lot of kids kept in school simply because it wasn’tsafe for them to be on the roads going home,” he said. “I realizeit was probably an inconvenience for some parents, but myself andthe superintendents made the decision for the children’ssafety.”

Williams said substantial debris was cleaned from Loyd Star Laneand James Drive. In addition, a tree landed on a house on JamesDrive, but the homeowners removed it themselves.

New Sight Volunteer Fire Department Chief Mike Boyd said hisfirefighters also responded to routine complaints during the stormsystem.

“We had trees down, and a trailer where part of the awning wasstuck through the roof, but for the most part most of the housesthat we’ve seen have had minimal damage,” Boyd said.

Power company officials were on the scene in New Sight almostimmediately after the storm passed. Service crews appeared to tourthe area and assess the damage around 4:30 p.m., and larger crewsbegan to arrive in number less than two hours later to repairdowned power lines.

“Our local office saw the front coming across the county andwouldn’t release us until everything was clear,” said EntergyLineman First Class Chris Elkins. “The service crews first cut thepower to make everything safe, and then we started trying to getthe electricity back on as soon as possible.”

Elkins estimated that about 150 people were without power in theNew Sight community after the storm had passed, but power companycrews had cut that number down to around 30 shortly after theyarrived.