BIRMINGHAM, Ala.  (WIAT) — The clean-up continues after storms tore through central Alabama Friday, but not without knocking out power to thousands and toppling trees in their path. At least one person was killed because of the weather.

A tree fell on John Solid’s home in Ensley.

“It’s an act of God. High wind this morning,” Solid said. “When it hit, it shook the house so hard it just swung me up against a wall.”

The storms uprooted dozens of trees across our viewing area. One destroyed Landon Hamlett’s car in Tuscaloosa.

“I was like surely it’s not that bad, but then I got here, and it was right on top of the car,” Hamlett said. “I could have been in the car, anyone could have been in the car and I’m thankful nobody was.”

This was not the case in Talladega. Friday’s storm claimed the life of Allen Cooley, 70, according to Talladega County Coroner Shaddix Murphy. He said the cause of death was blunt force trauma when a tree landed on him in a pickup truck in his driveway.

At one point more than 70,000 Alabama Power customers in Central Alabama without power.

“I came to see why the power was out and there’s a tree across Bear Creek it looks like,” Stephanie Pruitt said.

The outages caused the Outlet Shops of Grand River in Leeds to close because the lights stayed out. There were even more damaged cars in downtown Birmingham mural wall that scattered debris in its wake.

“What it did tear was my heart because I can’t afford to fix this myself,” Solid said.

We’ll continue to follow efforts to fix damage from Friday’s storms in the coming days.