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An early Spring storm system that swept across the South caused fatalities in Central Tennessee and Kentucky but the Lakeway Area managed to dodge the worst of the system.

At least five deaths were reported in hard-hit Kentucky, Gov. Andy Beshear said Saturday. The storm, with wind gusts surpassing 70 mph, downed trees and power lines and damaged homes and other buildings.

“This is very significant, widespread damage throughout Kentucky,” Beshear said.

In central Tennessee, where the severe weather took down power lines and damaged homes, at least two deaths were blamed on the storm. In both cases, the victims were struck by falling trees, authorities told local news outlets.

About 728,000 utility customers in Kentucky, Michigan and Tennessee were without power, according to PowerOutage.us. More than 330,000 of those customers were in Kentucky, and the governor warned it would take days for utility crews to fully restore service.

Kentucky’s electric cooperatives reported hundreds of snapped utility poles and thousands of power lines down across the Bluegrass State. Soft ground from heavy rains slowed the progress of heavy equipment to access damaged infrastructure.

In Morristown, MU reported some storm damage on Friday but nothing major, according to General Manager Jody Wigington.

“From 1 p.m. to  9.p.m, we had three breaker lockouts that collectively affected around 2,000 customers for around an hour each,” he said. “The cause was mostly high winds pushing or breaking trees into the lines along with some lightning damage. The system was normal again around 9 p.m.”

“But it was a long night of outages in the TVA Valley,” he said noting communities South of Knoxville had it worse.

At one point, Appalachian Electric reports about 1,400 customers without power.

The situation in Kentucky was far worse.

“The damage from this event is as widespread as any natural disaster I have ever seen in Kentucky co-op history,” said Chris Perry, president and CEO of Kentucky Electric Cooperatives.

In Alabama, a 70-year-old man sitting in his truck in Talledega County was killed when a tree fell onto his vehicle. A 43-year-old man in Lauderdale County and a man in Huntsville also were killed by falling trees Friday, local authorities said. Heavy rain caused flooding in southern Missouri and northern Arkansas.