ROCKINGHAM — Richmond County made it through Tropical Storm Idalia relatively unscathed.
While the area was under a flood watch, Emergency Services Director Bob Smith says just more than 2 inches of rain was recorded.
Smith added that there were wind gusts up to 20 mph, about average of what was forecast, “but overall things were relatively calm through the storm.”
“As for storm damages, we only received one call related to a tree down in the Ellerbe community, and there was a power outage this morning in downtown Rockingham,” Smith said, “but other than that, we fared very well through Tropical Storm Idalia.”
Duke Energy reported an earlier outage around 2 a.m. that affected more than 4,000 customers in East Rockingham and Hamlet, but according to a text sent out to customers, the cause was an animal on the line.
At one point, Duke had more than 20,000 customers without power across the Carolinas. However, that number had dwindled to just less than 1,800 by 5 p.m. Thursday.
Idalia made landfall as a Category 3 storm around 8 a.m. Wednesday morning southeast of Tallahassee, Florida, then moved across southern Georgia and up the South Carolina Coast overnight, and into the Atlantic Ocean Thursday morning.
Several areas in the eastern part of the state were affected by flooding.
By 5 p.m., the storm had been downgraded to a post-tropical cyclone, with maximum sustained winds at 65 mph, and was located about 165 miles southeast of Cape Hatteras, according to the National Hurricane Center.
There are several other storms in the Atlantic, but do not appear to be threats to the Carolinas.
Hurricane Franklin, currently north of Bermuda, is forecast to turn to the northeast, and Tropical Storm Jose is “expected to become absorbed by Franklin on Friday,” according to the NHC. Another tropical system, currently just off the coast of Africa, has an 80% chance of development.
