KNOX COUNTY (WVLT) – Early Monday morning there were less than 3,000 Knoxville Utility Board customers still without power after weekend storms gave way to strong wind gusts.

Late Sunday afternoon, there were more than 16,000 reported outages among KUB’s roughly 197,000 customers. The highest number of outages occurred in South Knoxville, West Hills and Powell.

Many businesses along the busy stretch of Kingston Pike in Bearden spent hours without electricity. That meant restaurants and shops would have to make due with the situation on one of their busiest days of the year.

"Our brunch normally ends at 2:00 PM,” said Chad Barger, the general manager of Copper Cellar and Cappuccinos. “That was right around the time the power fizzled out on us, but we were still able to seat a couple of the folks that came in a little later on. It really didn't have too much of an impact on us for our Sunday brunch."

Utility crews also blamed downed trees for causing power outages.

As the weekend weather exhibited, strong winds gusting in excess of 40 MPH can uproot trees of all sizes, especially when the soil is saturated.

One such case happened early Sunday evening, when a more than 100 year old tree collapsed onto a pair of E. Churchwell Ave. homes in North Knoxville. Nobody was hurt, but the homes suffered damage and cut off power in the area.

When trees fall they often take down nearby power lines running along roads and from the street to a home. That means crews have to not only restore power to short circuited lines, but also spend extra time removing the fallen tree and preventing possibly arcing wires from starting a fire.