A Huntsville Utilities employee was still recovering Monday at the University of Alabama at Birmingham hospital after Friday’s fast-moving storm that knocked out power to nearly 40,000 households and businesses in Madison and Limestone counties.

“Everything is back up,” utilities spokesman Todd Long said Monday. The storm just “blew through so quickly,” Long said.

The utility team member contacted a “primary line,” Long said, but his injuries weren’t life-threatening. He was in good spirits Monday, he said.

The fast-moving storm hit the utilities’ “entire service area” destroying 33 power poles, damaging 39 more to the point of needing repair and knocking down 98 power lines, Long said. It was “an all hands on deck” response, Long said, and utility crews worked 36 hours straight in shifts to restore power.

Long said the utility “understood the frustration” of home and business owners without power. In some cases, he said, the storm merely tripped breakers. Trees dropped lines in other places. “They literally had to go pole to pole” in some cases, he said.

The National Weather Service reported wind gusts of 69 miles per hour Friday in Huntsville. That is classified a “violent storm” capable of widespread damage to trees, power lines, signs and awnings. Winds that high can also demolish mobile homes.