ROCKINGHAM — Although a wind advisory is still in effect, it appears Richmond County made it through the remnants of Hurricane Zeta relatively unscathed.
Strong winds passing through the area on Thursday littered yards with leaves and limbs, but emergency officials are reporting less damage than what was seen during thunderstorms in the spring.
One tree fell mostly over near Richmond Road near the intersection with Baker Road and fell on the powerlines, according to Rockingham Fire Chief Harold Isler.
Mountain Creek Volunteer Fire Department Chief Kenny McFayden said there was one tree down on Clayton Carriker Road just before Capel Mill Road.
Up in Hoffman, Chief Frank McKay said one tree had fallen across Little Road.
Richmond County was also spared in terms of power outages.
At 3 p.m., Duke Energy reported four outages affecting eight customers.
But other areas weren’t as fortunate.
Online records show there were more than 21,000 without power in both Catawba and Mecklenburg counties, 29,000 in Guilford County and 30,000 in Forsyth County.
Western South Carolina was also hit hard, with Duke reporting 59,000 customers without power in Greenville County, 19,000 in Spartanburg County and 13,000 (around half) in Pickens County.
Pee Dee Electric only reported that there were 558 customers affected in Moore County and 39 in Anson County.
Hurricane Zeta made landfall as a Category 2 storm after 5 p.m. Wednesday in Louisiana and weakened to a tropical storm as it traveled northeast through the western parts of Georgia and the Carolinas before making a more eastwardly turn in Virginia.
News outlets report more than 2 million have been left without power across the South and three people have died as a result of the storm.
The wind advisory ends at 7 p.m.
