ROCKINGHAM — Strong winds associated with a thunderstorm Friday afternoon toppled trees and powerlines across Richmond County.
The National Weather Service had issued a severe thunderstorm warning set to expire at 5:30 p.m. — which was about the time the storm hit.
More than 13,000 homes in the Sandhills and Pee Dee regions were left without power for the rest of the night and much of the next day.
At 6:15 p.m. Friday, Duke Energy reported 110,806 total customers in the dark. Pee Dee Electric had a total of 3,312 customers out: 813 in Richmond; 1,819 in Anson; 429 in Montgomery; and 166 in Union.
A spokesman for Pee Dee Electric said power to all of its customers in Richmond County was restored by around noon Saturday.
While some outages were caused by downed trees and powerlines, some of the service wires were stripped away from the homes, including one in the Northside Volunteer Fire Department district, according to Chief Ed Causey.
Causey said there were around a dozen trees and a few powerlines down in the district.
Up in the northwestern corner of the county, Mountain Creek Chief Keith Smith said they had to cut six trees out of the way on Grassy Island, Green, Cartledge Creek and Saron Church roads.
Heavy rains from the day before also had the Pee Dee River overflowing its banks, flooding a section of Grassy Island Road and sending a large amount of water over the Blewett Falls dam.
The dock of the boat landing on U.S. 74 near the bridge was turned sideways from the rushing river.
In East Rockingham, there were a few trees and lines down, “but nothing serious,” according to Chief Bill Bayless.
The department responded to four calls, including a powerline down across from IGA at the corner of Broadway and Sandhill roads.
Bayless said a lot of older trees in the area are rotten on the inside and they can easily be taken down by strong winds.
That’s something Hoffman Fire Chief Frank McKay found out in his own yard.
McKay said an old oak tree about 18 inches in diameter was, unbeknownst to him, rotten on the inside and was broken off at ground level. The tree fell, narrowly missing his new dog fence.
“That first five munes as about as bad as I’ve seen,” McKay said, comparing it to other storms in the past.
Despite the wind, there were only two trees that fell in his district, on Derby and Millstone roads.
“We were fortunate,” he said. “It could have been a lot worse.”
Up the road in Derby, Chief Alan Hogan said his department didn’t get called out at all.
At 6 p.m. Friday, Ellerbe Fire Chief Will Barber said there were no problems in his town.
Back down in Hamlet, there was “very minimal damage,” just one power line and minor limbs down, according to Assistant Chief Richard Lassiter.
In the Cordova area, residents reported limbs on homes, legs blown off a trampoline and wires stripped.
However, Cordova Fire and Rescue was only dispatched to cut trees that had fallen across Zion Church Road and Center Street, Chief Jeremy Chance said.
Rockingham received quite a bit of damage including a tree down on a house on Rockingham Road.
The reports were not available on Monday due to the holiday.
A tree limb fell on a vacant home south of Cordova during Friday’s storms. Photo contributed by Julia Warwick
