The Wind Beneath Our Trees

1. It's the morning after in East Cobb, which means people around the area will be cleaning up after the violent storms that crashed through metro Atlanta around 11 p.m. We'll know more once the sun comes up, but we seem to have come through the wind, lightning, heavy rain and hail in good shape compared with some counties in Georgia. While Georgia Power reported 180,000 customers without electricity as of 4 a.m., including 84,000 in metro Atlanta, only 74 of Marietta Power and Water's customers lacked power, including 39 in the area of Eastvalley Drive off Lower Roswell Road in East Cobb. Crews reportedly were on the scene through the night.

If you have storm stories or reports of downed trees or power lines or blocked roads, let us know in the comment box. If you have photos or videos to share, click on "Add photos & videos."

2. While most of the rain is gone, the threat from the weather is not. We're under a wind advisory until 8 p.m., with sustained winds between 15 and 25 mph and gusts to 35 mph, according to the National Weather Service. Those gusts could topple trees with rain-weakened roots. We could see drizzle until 8 a.m., and the high is expected to be only 57 degrees. The winds will blow at 10 to 15 mph overnight, and we'll see patches of frost. This is still spring break, right?

3. For the civic-minded, the Cobb County Planing Commission is holding its monthly zoning meeting at 9 a.m. in the Board of Commissioners room at 100 Cherokee St. just off Marietta Square. Not much of the agenda affects East Cobb, including a proposed gas station/convenience store at Johnson Ferry and Shallowford roads and a hotel/retail complex on Cumberland Boulevard at Interstate 75.

4. The man in the middle of the political storm in Cobb County lately has been David Banks, the Board of Education member for East Cobb's Pope High and Northeast Cobb's and . He has led the fight against the board's 4-3 decision Feb. 17 to switch from a balanced calendar to a traditional one. You won't want to miss our Q&A with Banks. In other school news, return to East Cobb Patch around noon to meet this week's Whiz Kid, a fifth-grader from .

5. Normally, we would have been upset about a storm knocking out power in the middle of the NCAA Division I basketball championship game. But it sounds as if Butler-Connecticut was a dog of a game, and not just because the 53-41 UConn win pitted Huskies against Bulldogs. The people spared from watching the second half may have been the lucky ones. What gets us from our East Cobb perch is having to see former Norcross star Jeremy Lamb win a national championship less than a month after Norcross knocked on the way to its state championship. Bitter? Yeah, maybe.